Beth L. Green

The helping relationship and program participation in early childhood home visiting

As researchers have focused on better understanding those circumstances under which home visiting can lead to positive effects on parent and child outcomes, there has been growing interest in examining variation in the experiences of families within these programs, including the quality of the helping relationships between home visitors and parents. The current study examined how participating mothers perceive the helping relationship, using information collected from the Early Head Start National Research and Evaluation Project. Results suggest that although maternal report of the helping relationship is biased towards positive ratings, it remains a significant predictor of program participation, over and above general program satisfaction. Implications for measurement development and program interventions are discussed.

How Effective Are Family Treatment Drug Courts? Outcomes From a Four-Site National Study

Family treatment drug courts (FTDCs) are a rapidly expanding program model designed to improve treatment and child welfare outcomes for families involved in child welfare who have substance abuse problems. The present study compares outcomes for 250 FTDC participants to those of similar parents who did not receive FTDC services in four sites. Results show that FTDC parents, compared to comparison parents, entered substance abuse treatment more quickly, stayed in treatment longer, and completed more treatment episodes. Furthermore, children of FTDC parents entered permanent placements more quickly and were more likely to be reunified with their parents, compared to children of non-FTDC participants. Finally, the FTDC program appears to have a “value added” in facilitating positive child welfare outcomes above and beyond the influence of positive treatment experiences.

Parents, Practitioners, and Researchers: Community-Based Participatory Research With Early Head Start

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an approach to research and evaluation that is receiving increased attention in the field of public health. Our report discusses the application of this approach to research and evaluation with an Early Head Start (EHS) program in Pittsburgh, Pa. Our primary purpose is to illustrate the key elements that contributed to effective collaboration among researchers, EHS practitioners, and parents of EHS children in the conduct of the study. The focus is not on research findings but on research process. Our goal is to make the practices of CBPR visible and explicit so they can be analyzed, further developed, and effectively applied to a range of public health issues in a diversity of community contexts.

The Strengths-Based Practices Inventory: A Tool for Measuring Strengths-Based Service Delivery in Early Childhood and Family Support Programs

Understanding the outcomes of strengths-based programs requires a better understanding of the extent to which programs actually provide services that are consistent with this model. To this end, we have developed the Strengths-Based Practices Inventory (SBPI). Data collected from two studies of parents participating in either an early childhood prevention program or family support program indicated that the SBPI has 4 related factors: (a) identification and use of strengths, (b) cultural competency, (c) interpersonal sensitivity and knowledge, and (d) relationship-supportive behavior. The SBPI is sensitive to differences between programs in the extent of strengths-based practice and is related to some expected outcomes, including family empowerment and social support.

Is the Adoption and Safe Families Act Influencing Child Welfare Outcomes for Families With Substance Abuse Issues

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) was designed to promote more timely permanent placements for children in the child welfare system. To date, however, available data have said little about whether ASFA is meeting its intended goals. This study looks at the impact of ASFA on parents struggling with substance abuse issues. The authors compared child welfare outcomes, pre- and post-ASFA, for children of more than 1,900 substance-abusing women with some treatment involvement. After the implementation of ASFA, children in this study spent less time in foster care, were placed in permanent settings more quickly, and were more likely to be adopted than remain in long-term foster care. The proportion of children who were reunified with their parent or parents stayed the same. These outcomes were apparent even controlling for case and family characteristics. Results are discussed in terms of the influence of ASFA on service delivery systems.

The effect of Early Head Start on child welfare system involvement: A first look at longitudinal child maltreatment outcomes☆

The high societal and personal costs of child maltreatment make identification of effective early prevention programs a high research priority. Early Head Start (EHS), a dual generational program serving low-income families with children prenatally through age three years, is one of the largest federally funded programs for infants and toddlers in the United States. A national randomized trial found EHS to be effective in improving parent and child outcomes, but its effectiveness in reducing child maltreatment was not assessed. The current study used administrative data from state child welfare agencies to examine the impact of EHS on documented abuse and neglect among children from seven of the original seventeen programs in the national EHS randomized controlled trial. Results indicated that children in EHS had significantly fewer child welfare encounters between the ages of five and nine years than did children in the control group, and that EHS slowed the rate of subsequent encounters. Additionally, compared to children in the control group, children in EHS were less likely to have a substantiated report of physical or sexual abuse, but more likely to have a substantiated report of neglect. These findings suggest that EHS may be effective in reducing child maltreatment among low-income children, in particular, physical and sexual abuse.

Do Dads Matter? Child Welfare Outcomes for Father-Identified Families

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched the Fatherhood Initiative to facilitate increased fatherhood engagement. To understand how fatherhood identification in child welfare care planning influences outcomes, a secondary data analysis study was conducted to answer the following questions: Are cases that identify fathers associated with decreased time in foster care, shorter time to permanent placement, more reunifications, and increased use of kinship permanency? The children in cases that identified fathers spent more time with a parent during their child welfare case and therefore less time in foster care. These cases more often resulted in reunification with a parent.

Integrating Program and Evaluation Values: A Family Support Approach to Program Evaluation.

Abstract In the past several years, models of social service provision that are based on principles of “family support” have been implemented nationwide. Development of evaluation methods to adequately reflect the multifaceted nature of these programs, however, has lagged behind program development. It is particularly difficult (especially within the context of traditional evaluation paradigms) to develop evaluations that do not in and of themselves violate the principles of family support, which advocate for services that are strengths-based, collaborative, family-centered, comprehensive, and flexible. To this end, we have been collaborating with local agency directors, family support staff, and parents to develop an evaluation approach that is based on the general principles of family support. The work that we describe draws techniques from participatory, empowerment, and utilization-focused evaluation approaches, but operationalizes evaluation activities based on the guiding program value system. By tailoring the evaluation to the service philosophy, we contend that the evaluation process can become more thoroughly integrated with the service program, and thus provide a more useful and accurate picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the program.

Some Non-Randomized Constructed Comparison Groups for Evaluating Age-Related Outcomes of Intervention Programs

Abstract The evaluations of many intervention programs for young children are hampered by the lack of untreated comparison groups. Simple pre-post comparisons or more elaborate growth profile analyses within a single treatment group cannot separate changes associated with the treatment from normal developmental changes typical of the participant population. To address this issue, some non-randomized constructed comparison strategies that can be used to evaluate interventions are outlined and illustrated for outcome variables that would be expected to change over age if no treatment were given. Such a dependent variable might include general indices of developmental progress in young children, which may decline over the first few years of life in low-income, high-risk samples or may increase over age in middle-class groups suffering adverse perinatal circumstances and disorders even without special interventions. The proposed strategy consists of determining an expected age function for the dependent variable using pretest scores (if participants enter the treatment program at different ages) or using pretest scores of older siblings who vary in age at the start of the program, and then calculating an age-adjusted expected posttest score against which actual posttest performance may be evaluated. This approach also permits analysis of participants enrolled in the treatment for varying lengths of time and over somewhat different age spans.

A multilevel analysis of consultant attributes that contribute to effective mental health consultation services

A positive relationship between the mental health consultant (MHC) and early care and education staff is considered important for achieving positive early childhood mental health consultation outcomes, but little is known about the attributes of MHCs that contribute to relationships with staff and to staff-reported child outcomes. This study was a secondary analysis of 57 MHCs and 407 Head Start staff who responded to the Head Start Mental Health Services Survey. Hierarchical linear models examined the relationship between five attributes of MHCs and staff reports of improved child outcomes and a positive relationship with the MHC. The results suggest that MHC reports of positive relationships with staff, positive relationships with families, and high levels of supervision and support are positively associated with staff reports of positive relationships with the MHC (p < .05). None of the MHC-reported attributes were associated with staff-reported child outcomes.