Scaling the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) Intervention: Insights from the Experiences of Parent Possible

This case study describes the scaling of Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY), a home-visiting intervention that seeks to help parents improve their young children’s development, by Parent Possible and its partners. Parent Possible is scaling the HIPPY intervention by:

Replicating the program to reach more families
Adapting aspects of the intervention to address the needs of the population being served as well as funder requirements

Goals:

The case study focused on how grantees viewed scaling, the actions they took when they scaled, and what factors appeared to facilitate or challenge scaling.

Research Questions:

The research questions are:

How did selected grantees define and operationalize scaling?
How did selected grantees scale evidence-based interventions?

Findings:

The case study found the following:

Multiple levels of implementation support aid in scaling.
The grantee and local agencies appeared to benefit from flexibility on the part of the intervention developer in being able to meet scaling requirements with small modifications.
In scaling HIPPY with AmeriCorps members, the grantee and local agencies have been able to meet HIPPY USA’s personnel requirements. Still, they have faced some challenges with achieving and maintaining a sufficient workforce to scale the intervention.
The grantee has led or participated in various forms of training and communication that support scaling.
While the intervention developer’s national training is intended to ensure fidelity, the grantee has developed and holds training to facilitate scaling within the local context.
Limited resources make it difficult for the grantee to use data for program improvement and conduct evaluation studies.

For more information, download the case study.

Scaling Evidence-Based Models (SEBM) Project

The Office of Research and Evaluation (ORE) initiated the Scaling Evidence-Based Models project to support the scaling of effective interventions. This case study is part of ORE’s Scaling Evidence-Based Models project, which includes additional resources that contribute to the study and application of scaling effective interventions. Below are additional scaling resources:

Baseline Equivalence: What it is and Why it is Needed: This guide is designed to help practitioners and researchers work together to design an impact study with baseline equivalence and in turn learning how to determine if an impact study is likely to produce meaningful results.
What Makes for a Well-Designed, Well-Implemented Impact Study: This guide is intended to help practitioners ensure that their evaluators produce high-quality impact studies.
How to Fully Describe an Intervention: This guide is intended to help practitioners to thoroughly describe their intervention and communicate the following to potential funders or stakeholders.
Making the Most of Data: This guide will help practitioners maximize the use of their intervention data to help their organizations improve program implementation and provide evidence to funders about effectiveness.
How to Structure Implementation Supports: This guide will help practitioners develop formal strategies (also known as implementation supports) to help consistently deliver an intervention as it was designed, which is especially helpful for organizations scaling an intervention and assessing implementation fidelity.
Build Organizational Capacity to Implement an Intervention: This guide will help practitioners prepare to implement their desired intervention through building organizational capacity, which involves establishing the organizational structure, workforce, resources, processes, and culture to enable success.
Scaling the Birth and Beyond (B&B) Intervention: Insights from the Experiences of the Child Abuse Prevention Council (CAPC): This case study describes the scaling of Birth and Beyond (B&B), a parenting education and support intervention designed to reduce child maltreatment, by the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Sacramento (CAPC) and its partners.
Scaling the Reading Corps Intervention: Insights from the Experiences of the United Way of Iowa: This case study describes the scaling of Reading Corps, a literacy intervention designed to improve reading proficiency by United Ways of Iowa (UWI) and its partners.
Scaling Evidence-Based Interventions: Insights from the Experiences of Three Grantees: This report presents insights from a cross-site analysis of process case studies conducted with three AmeriCorps grantees engaged in scaling.
Scaling Programs With Research Evidence and Effectiveness: This article describes a process called SPREE —Scaling Programs with Research Evidence and Effectiveness — and provides insights into conditions under which foundations can apply it to help them and their grantees scale successfully.
Scaling Checklists: Assessing Your Level of Evidence and Readiness (SCALER): This guide describes a framework that identifies how organizations can improve both their readiness to scale an intervention and the intervention’s readiness to be scaled, so that intervention services are best positioned to improve outcomes for a larger number of participants. Each checklist in the SCALER provides summary scores to reflect how ready an intervention and organization might be for scaling.
Planned Scaling Activities of AmeriCorps-Funded Organizations: This report is designed to generate both practical knowledge about how AmeriCorps and other funders can successfully scale effective interventions.
Evidence of Effectiveness in AmeriCorps-Funded Organizations: This report is designed to help inform the agency’s interest in identifying the intervention components that are critical for an intervention’s effectiveness.
Scaling an Intervention: Recommendations and Resources: This guide draws on the knowledge generated from applying the Scaling Programs with Research Evidence and Effectiveness (SPREE process) used to assess AmeriCorps’ funded organizations and interventions during the SEBM project.

Full report

Full Report

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Further information

Program/Intervention

Scaling HIPPY, Best Practice Dissemination

Implementing Organization

CNCS Office of Research and Evaluation Commissioned Report

Intermediary(s)

Parent Possible

Age(s) Studied

0-5 (Early childhood)

Focus Population(s)/Community(s)

Opportunity Youth

Rural

Suburban

Urban

Outcome Category

School readiness

K-12 success

Improving AmeriCorps

Study Type(s)

Case Study or Descriptive

Researcher/Evaluator

Mathematica

Published Year

2020

Study Site Location (State)

Colorado