This document was printed from the website of the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC), which you can access at http://www.cachildwelfareclearinghouse.org/
This document was printed from the website of the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC), which you can access at http://www.cachildwelfareclearinghouse.org/
Type of Maltreatment: Not specified
Target Population: All families with young children; families under stress
Brief Description:
The Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education initiative has been rated by the CEBC in the area of Prevention (Secondary). The Strengthening Families initiative is a research-based, cost-effective strategy to prevent child abuse and neglect by strengthening and supporting families. This initiative, which has been implemented in over 30 states, helps early childhood centers work with families to build five protective factors shown by research to correlate with child abuse and neglect prevention: Parental resilience, parental social connections, parental knowledge of parenting and child development, concrete parental support in times of need, and healthy social and emotional child development.
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The Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education initiative is based on:
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education approach focuses on helping Early Care and Education (ECE) programs identify specific practice changes they can make to help them build protective factors with families. Protective factors include:
This help starts with a 13-page self-assessment that ECE programs complete either online or on paper. The self-assessment evaluates how well the program performs in the following strategies:
An on-line version of the self-assessment is available at the following address: http://www.atlassoft.com/cssp/. Here participating programs can fill out self-assessments, get automatic data runs, and acquire support through an action planning process.
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education was not designed to be conducted in a group.
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education has not been tested for use in a group setting.
Recommended intensity: Almost daily contact with parents and young children through their early care and education providers.
Recommended duration: The model is based on the long-term engagement that families have with their child’s early care and education provider. Surveys should only be administered to parents whose children have been participating in one of the programs for over six months.
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education does not include a homework component.
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education is typically conducted in: Not specified.
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education was designed with a Parent Component.
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education addresses the following presenting problems and symptoms: High levels of stress
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education was designed with a Child Component.
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education addresses the following presenting problems and symptoms: Challenging Behaviors
Age range(s): 0-5
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education was not developed for children with developmental delays.
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education has not been tested for children with developmental delays.
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education was not designed for specific racial/ethnic/cultural groups.
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education was not tested in specific racial/ethnic/cultural groups.
There is a manual that describes how to implement this program.
There is training available for Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education.
Training contact: Currently it is probably easiest to call Nilofer Ahsan at CSSP (847-491-6368) to get an overview of existing training options. A database of available trainings will be available on our website early next year.
Number of days/hours: Days and hours vary by trainer and curriculum. The trainings listed above span from two-hour overviews to six-day intensive training approaches.
Training is obtained: Generally provided on-site.
There currently are additional qualified resources for training.
List of additional qualified resources: A number of state level and national groups have developed specific training for program implementation or have adapted existing trainings to include the protective factors and information about the approach. These include Zero to Three, The Midwest Learning Center on Family Support, The Wisconsin Children’s Trust Fund, The Parent’s Services Project, The National Association for Education of Young Children, and The Parents as Teachers National Center.
The typical resources for implementing Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education are: An existing early care and education program to add the program to.
The current model has been developed for licensed early care and education settings, so the providers are typically childcare workers with varying levels of education. An adapted set of tools is currently being developed for home-based childcare settings and should be available next year.
There are currently no research studies on Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education.
A literature review was conducted by the Erickson Institute, which looked at existing research connected to each of the protective factors. The following is a link to this literature review: http://www.cssp.org/uploadFiles/horton.pdf
A power point on the research behind Strengthening Families is also available at this link: http://www.cssp.org/doris_duke/resources/index.html and is item VI. a. Printing the slides with attached notes will provide a more complete description of the various study components underlying the model.
The Strengthening Families website includes implementation materials:
NAEYC has adapted its accreditation standards to reflect Strengthening Families practices and concepts. http://www.naeyc.org
Zero to Three has integrated Strengthening Families and the protective factors into their Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect curriculum—which is the basis for their State Partnerships for Prevention going on in over a dozen states. http://www.zerotothree.org
The Parents as Teachers National Center has integrated Strengthening Families and the protective factors into all trainings and curricula for parent educators and other early childhood professionals. http://www.parentsasteachers.org
The Federal Office of Child Abuse and Neglect (OCAN) used the protective factors as the basis for their resource guide disseminated to all states in 2006. http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/res_packet_2007/
Contact name: Nilofer Ahsan, MPP
Affiliation/Agency: Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP)
Email: nilofer.ahsan@cssp.org
Phone: 847-491-6368
Fax: 847-556-6043
Website: http://www.cssp.org