Brandy L. Clarke

Efficacy of the Getting Ready Intervention and the Role of Parental Depression

Research Findings: This study reports the results of a randomized trial of a parent engagement intervention (the Getting Ready intervention) on directly observed learning-related social behaviors of children from low-income families in the context of parent–child interactions. The study explored the moderating effect of parental depression on intervention outcomes. Participants were 204 children and their parents as well as 29 Head Start teachers. Semistructured parent–child interaction tasks were videotaped 2 times annually over the course of 2 academic years. Observational codes of child behaviors included agency, persistence, activity level, positive affect, distractibility, and verbalizations. Practice or Policy: When gender and disability concerns were controlled, those in the treatment condition experienced a significant decline in activity level relative to children in the control group. Furthermore, compared to children of nondepressed mothers and to control children, those in the experimental condition whose parent reported elevated levels of depression showed greater gains in positive affect and in verbalizations.

Conjoint Behavioral Consultation: Implementing a Tiered Home–School Partnership Model to Promote School Readiness

An ecological perspective to school readiness focuses on child and family readiness by enhancing the developmental contexts and relationships within which children reside (e.g., home environment, parent–child relationship, home–school relationships). The Getting Ready intervention is an ecological, relationally based, tiered intervention providing both universal and intensive services to children and families to promote child and family school readiness. Intensive level consultation services were provided via Conjoint Behavioral Consultation (CBC; Sheridan & Kratochwill, 1992, 2008). The purpose of this article is to describe the implementation and effects of CBC within the Getting Ready intervention to promote child and family school readiness. Keys to successful implementation of the CBC intervention and issues needing further investigation are discussed.