Ready Children Ready Communities Final Report

Ready Children Ready Communities is an integrated set of community-based interventions employed in Macomb and Wayne Counties, MI. The program’s aim is to identify and serve high-risk children from birth to five years to ensure that they are ready for kindergarten. The program does this by:

• Screening and assessing children for developmental delays and mental health needs
• Providing literacy-related home visits for at-risk families using the evidence-based Parents As Teachers (PAT) curriculum
• Providing a social emotional consultant, as well as referrals to other mental health services, for children and families who need more intensive support
• Offering Play and Learn Groups for parents and children ages 0-5 in community sites, including schools, libraries and early learning settings
• Staging parent-child community events focused on early childhood learning for families, schools and communities and on providing information about community resources

Study Goals:

The goal of this study is to determine if the implementation of Ready Children Ready Communities improves kindergarten readiness.

Research Questions:

The evaluation addressed both impact and implementation questions. The research questions were:

• Impact Questions:
  1. Do parents who participated in PAT home visits show greater improvement than parents who only participated in Play and Learn Groups in perceived knowledge of the principles of early childhood development, value of reading daily to their children, and knowledge of how to access community resources?
  2. Do parents report significantly higher ratings in the following after participation in PAT home visits:
     1. Understanding of the principles of early childhood development?
     2. Valuing of reading to their children daily?
     3. Knowledge of how to access community resources?
  3. Do parents report significantly higher ratings in the following after participation in Play and Learn Groups:
     1. Understanding of the principles of early childhood development?
     2. Valuing of reading to their children daily?
     3. Knowledge of how to access community resources?
  4. Is there a statistically significant improvement from the first visit to the last visit in the quality and quantity of stimulation and support in the home environment for at least 65 percent of children whose parents participate in the PAT home visits?
  5. Do at least 65 percent of children receiving intensive early childhood mental health services improve on at least one protective factor or decrease on at least one behavioral concern?
• Implementation Questions:
  1. Is the community outreach successful in recruiting the targeted number of children and parents for participation in PAT home visits, early childhood mental health services, and community events?
  2. Did the program achieve its goal of screening 80 percent of PAT home visit children for developmental delay using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ)?
  3. Are the PAT home visits implemented with fidelity to the model?
  4. Are the Play and Learn Groups implemented with quality according to the criterion of best practices in early childhood education?
  5. What types of problems arise in implementing the PAT home visits and how are they resolved?
  6. What types of problems arise in implementing the Play and Learn Groups and how are they resolved?

Findings:

The evaluation found the following:

• Parents who received home visitation services and parents who only received Play and Learn services showed statistically significant increases over time in…However, parents in the home visitation services group improved more over time than parents in the Play and Learn-only group.
• There was also a statistically significant improvement from the first visit to the last visit in the quality and quantity of stimulation and support in the home environment (as measured by the Infant’s and Toddler’s Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME)) with 100 percent of families reporting improvements.
• Similar improvements were reported for six of the eight subscales of the Early Childhood HOME and with two subscales showing no statistically significant change (physical environment and acceptance). Overall, 55 percent of families receiving home visits reported improvements on the Early Childhood HOME.
• Eighty-seven percent of children receiving intensive early childhood mental health services improved on at least one protective factor (initiative, self-control, attachment) or decreased on behavioral concerns.

For more information, download the full report and report brief.