ParentChild+
Problems addressed
Low social–emotional competences
School dropout
Low parental skills
Effectiveness

Promising

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Promising

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Life periods served
Children (4 to 13 years)
Adults (18 to 59 years)
Where the program was applied
Residence / home
Country of application
United States
Description

This is an early childhood program to promote parent-child interaction and positive parenting with the goal of improving children’s cognitive and social and emotional development. The program focuses on supporting families and empowering them to prepare their children for academic success.
Intensive home visits are held twice a week, designed to strengthen parent-child interaction, conversation, reading, and play that are essential for early childhood development. Each week, early learning specialists (home visitors) present a new book or educational toy that the family gets to keep permanently.

Impact evaluations

Impact evaluation studies have shown that the effects included higher levels of desirable behaviors in maternal interactions [1]; better performance of children when carrying out tasks and communicating with their mothers [2]; children were less likely to be absent from school and more likely to complete school [3]; better verbal and literacy skills, but no effect on emotional and social skills [4]; a progressive increase in the quality of the home environment in terms of both parent and child behavior, child behaviors, quality of parent-child interaction [5]; improvement in child vocabulary [6].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Madden, J., O’Hara, J., & Levenstein, P. (1984). Home again: Effects of the Mother Child Home Program on mother and child. Child Development, 55,(2), 636-647. https://doi.org/10.2307/1129975

[2] Scarr, S., & McCartney, K. (1988). Far from home: An experimental evaluation of the Mother-Child Home Program in Bermuda. Child Development, 59(3), 531-543. https://doi.org/10.2307/1130555

[3] Levenstein, P., Levenstein, S., Shiminski, J. A., & Stolzberg, J. E. (1998). Long-term impact of a verbal interaction program for at-risk toddlers: An exploratory study of high school outcomes in a replication of the Mother-Child Home Program. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 19(2), 267-285. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0193-3973(99)80040-9

[4] Allen, L., Sethi, A., & Astuto, J. (2007). An evaluation of graduates of a toddlerhood home visiting program at kindergarten age. NHSA Dialog, 10(1), 36-57. https://doi.org/10.1080/15240750701301811

[5] Gfellner, B. M., McLaren, L., & Metcalfe, A. (2008). The Parent-Child Home Program in Western Manitoba: A 20-year evaluation. Child Welfare, 87(5), 49-67. https://www. jstor .org /stable/48623165

[6] Manz, P. H., Bracaliello, C. B., Pressimone, V. J., Eisenberg, R. A., Gernhart, A. C., Fu, Q., & Zuniga, C. (2016). Toddlers/// expressive vocabulary outcomes after one year of Parent–Child Home Program services. Early Child Development and Care, 186(2), 229-248. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2015.1025228

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