The information in this program outline is provided by the program representative and edited by the CEBC staff. The Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education program has been reviewed by the CEBC in the area of: Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (Secondary), but lacks the necessary research evidence to be given a Scientific Rating.

• Types of Maltreatment: Does not target any specific kind of maltreatment
• Target Population: All families with young children; families under stress.

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.

The Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education initiative is based on:

• Analysis of existing research in the field of child abuse and neglect to identify protective factors.
• A national study of early childhood programs that included a field study of 21 exemplary programs across the country.
• Conversations with hundreds of experts in the field, researchers, practitioners and parents.
  
• A partnership with seven states to pilot policy, funding, and training strategies to support implementation.

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:

• parental resilience
• social connections
• knowledge of parenting and child development
• concrete support in times of need
• social and emotional competence of children.

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:

• Facilitate friendships and mutual support
• Strengthen parenting
• Respond to family crises
• Link families to services and opportunities
• Facilitate children’s social and emotional development
• Observe and respond to early warning signs of child abuse and neglect
• Value and support parents.

An on-line version of the self-assessment is available at the following address: 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 designed with a child component that addresses the following presenting problems and symptoms:

• Challenging Behaviors.

Age range: 0 – 5

Developmental Delays:

This program was not developed for children with developmental delays, and has not been tested for children with developmental delays.

Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education was designed with a parent/caregiver component that addresses the following presenting problems and symptoms:

• High levels of stress.

Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education was not designed to be conducted in a group setting, and 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.

Not Specified

This program does not include a homework component.

Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education does not have materials available in a language other than English.

The typical resources for implementing the program are:

An existing early care and education program to which this program can be added.

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 is a manual that describes how to implement this program, and there is training available for this program.

Training is obtained:

Generally provided on-site. Please see www.strengtheningfamilies.net/index.php/training_marketplace for a list of training opportunities.

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.

Additional Resources:

There currently are additional qualified resources for training:

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.

This program has been reviewed and it was determined that this program lacks the type of published, peer-reviewed research that meets the CEBC criteria for a scientific rating of 1 – 5. Therefore, the program has been given the classification of "NR - Not able to be Rated." It was reviewed because it was identified by the topic expert as a program being used in the field, or it is being marketed and/or used in California with children receiving services from child welfare or related systems and their parents/caregivers. Some programs that are not rated may have published, peer-reviewed research that does not meet the above stated criteria or may have eligible studies that have not yet been published in the peer-reviewed literature. For more information on the "NR - Not able to be Rated" classification, please see the Scientific Rating Scale.

Child Welfare Outcomes: Not Specified

Currently, there are no published, peer-reviewed research studies for Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education.