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I. INTRODUCTION

In any program evaluation, knowing how the program was implemented is critical for understanding program impacts and for making recommendations for program improvements. The National Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project is using several strategies to look into the operations of 17 research programs, including an assessment of the extent to which research programs have implemented Early Head Start, based on selected portions of the revised Head Start Program Performance Standards and the Early Head Start grant announcement. Our understanding of the Early Head Start intervention, and in particular the extent of program implementation, will help us design appropriate impact analyses, understand program impacts, and identify pathways to full implementation and high-quality services in the research programs.

This volume presents our findings on the extent of the research programs’ implementation in fall 1997, two years after they were funded and one year after they began serving families. It is the third volume in a series of reports that describes the characteristics and implementation of the 17 Early Head Start research programs soon after they began serving families. The first two volumes describe the programs’ expected outcomes and services delivered in each of the program areas (Volume I; ACYF 1999a) and present a descriptive profile of each of the 17 research programs (Volume II; ACYF 1999b). A second implementation report, to be completed later in 2000, will present findings on the extent of program implementation in fall 1999 and will describe the developmental pathways the 17 research programs followed over the first four years of Early Head Start program funding.

In this introductory chapter, we first provide a brief overview of the Early Head Start program and the national evaluation and then describe the policy and program context in which the 17 Early Head Start research programs have been implemented. In Chapter II, we describe the methods and data we used to assess the extent of early program implementation in Early Head Start research programs. Chapters III through V present the results of our assessment of early implementation in three major program areas--early childhood development and health services, family and community partnerships, and program design and management. Because Head Start program guidelines require that programs provide high-quality child care services as needed by children and families, either by providing these services directly or by helping families obtain appropriate child care in the community, Chapter III also presents preliminary data from observations of the child care settings of Early Head Start children in the research sample. A final chapter sums up what we have learned from our assessment of early program implementation in fall 1997 and looks ahead to our second assessment of program implementation in fall 1999.

A. EARLY HEAD START

Early Head Start, a new Head Start initiative to serve low-income pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers, began in 1995. The Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) designed the Early Head Start program in response to (1) the growing awareness of a “quiet crisis” facing families of infants and toddlers in the United States, as identified in the Starting Points report of the Carnegie Corporation of New York; (2) recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Head Start Quality and Expansion; (3) growing community needs for services for infants and toddlers; and (4) the 1994 Head Start reauthorization, which established a special initiative setting aside three percent of 1995 Head Start funding, four percent of 1996 and 1997 funding, and five percent of 1998 funding for services to families with infants and toddlers. Following the 1994 Head Start reauthorization, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Secretary Donna Shalala’s Advisory Committee on Services for Families with Infants and Toddlers set forth a vision and blueprint for Early Head Start programs. The 1998 Coats Human Services Reauthorization Act increased Early Head Start funding to 7.5 percent for fiscal year 1999, 8 percent for fiscal year 2000, 9 percent for 2001, and 10 percent for 2002 and 2003. Today more than 600 programs across the nation are serving pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers. More programs will be funded in 2000 and beyond as the Head Start Bureau increases the proportion of funds set aside for services for families with infants and toddlers.

Early Head Start is a child development program consisting of comprehensive, two-generation services that may begin before the child is born. Services focus on enhancing the child’s development and supporting family members as primary educators of their children during the critical first three years of the child’s life. Early Head Start programs are designed to produce outcomes in four domains:

1. Child development (including health, resiliency, and social, cognitive, and language development)

2. Family development (including parenting and relationships with children, the home environment and family functioning, family health, parent involvement, and economic self-sufficiency)

3. Staff development (including professional development and relationships with parents)

4. Community development (including enhanced child care quality, community collaboration, and integration of services to support families with young children)

The Wave I Early Head Start programs were funded in fall 1995. The early years of their grants were characterized by significant changes and many events. Some of these events required some of the young Early Head Start programs to make adjustments and, in a few cases, to redesign their service approach. Figure I.1 presents a timeline displaying the key events surrounding the implementation of Early Head Start.1

B. THE EARLY HEAD START NATIONAL RESEARCH AND EVALUATION PROJECT

In 1996 and 1997, ACYF selected 17 programs from around the country to participate in the Early Head Start National Research and Evaluation Project. Sixteen of the research programs received funding in fall 1995 (Wave I) and began enrolling families in summer 1996. One research program received funding in fall 1996 (Wave II) and began enrolling families in summer 1997. These programs constitute a balanced group--including Head Start agencies, former Comprehensive Child Development Programs, former Parent Child Centers, school districts, and community-based organizations; all 10 DHHS service regions; urban and rural areas; and variation in racial/ethnic makeups. The research programs broadly resemble the full group of programs that received Early Head Start funding in the first two waves in terms of enrollment and family demographics, based on comparisons with Head Start Program Information Report (PIR) data.2   Thus, lessons from their implementation are likely to be applicable to other Early Head Start programs.

The Early Head Start National Research and Evaluation Project is being conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. and Columbia University in collaboration with 15 local research teams and is being coordinated by the Early Head Start Research Consortium. The research includes five major components: (1) an implementation study; (2) an impact evaluation, using an experimental design; (3) local research studies to learn about pathways to desired outcomes; (4) policy studies to respond to information needs in areas of emerging policy-relevant issues; and (5) continuous program improvement. The research aims to produce a knowledge base to inform the development of all Early Head Start programs.

FIGURE I.1

KEY EVENTS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EARLY HEAD START
PROGRAMS AND RESEARCH

Jan. 1994			Advisory Committee on Head Start Quality and Expansion recommends serving families with children under 3
			Carnegie Starting Points report released
			Head Start reauthorized with mandate to serve infants and toddlers
			Advisory Committee on Services for families with Infants and Toddlers sets forth vision and names Early Head Start
Jan. 1995			First Early Head Start program announcement
			Federal Fatherhood Initiative formed
			Wave I: 68 new Early Head Start programs funded
Jan. 1996			15 research programs selected, local research grants awarded
			First Early Head Start programs began serving families
			Welfare reform legislation enacted
			Wave II: 75 new EHS programs funded; 16th research program selected
			First round of research site visits conducted
Jan. 1997			17th research program selected
			White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning
			Wave III: 32 new EHS programs funded Second round of research site visits conducted
Jan. 1998			Revised Head Start Program Performance Standards take effect
			Monitoring visits to Wave I programs conducted
			Wave IV: 127 new EHS programs funded
			Wave V: 148 new EHS programs funded
			Head Start reauthorized
Jan. 1999			Wave VI: 97 new programs funded
			Third round of research implementation visits conducted
Jan. 2000

C. THE POLICY CONTEXT FOR EARLY HEAD START IMPLEMENTATION

The early phases of the Early Head Start initiative were implemented during a time of fundamental changes in this country’s social services systems. Early Head Start programs responded to these changes, in some cases by changing their service delivery approach and in some cases by changing the ways they collaborated with others in their communities. In particular, five broad social changes and contextual factors, some of which occurred after Early Head Start began, have been and are likely to continue influencing the Early Head Start initiative:

1. Increasing recognition of the importance of early development, which has led to greater demand and support for services that start when women are pregnant and focus directly on child development

2. Welfare reform in the context of a strong economy, which can increase parents’ child care needs, increase levels of family stress, and make it more difficult for parents to participate in some program services

3. New child care and state-supported early childhood initiatives, which can make it easier for families to obtain financial assistance, increase the need for Early Head Start staff members to collaborate with state child care administrators and local child care programs, and may make it more difficult for Early Head Start programs to hire and retain staff members

4. Growing attention to the roles of fathers in young children’s lives, which can lead programs to devote more resources than originally planned to strengthen fathers’ relationships with their children and enhance fathers’ parenting skills

5. Recent evaluation findings that identify challenges in improving outcomes for children and families, which suggest that programs that provide intensive, purposeful, high-quality child-focused services are more likely than those that provide primarily parent-focused services to promote significant change in children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development

D. PROGRAM APPROACHES

Early Head Start programs strive to achieve their goals by designing program options based on family and community needs. Programs may offer one or more options to families, including (1) a home-based option, (2) a center-based option, (3) a combination option in which families receive a prescribed number of home visits and center-based experiences, and (4) locally designed options. Because a single program may offer multiple options to families, we have characterized programs for purposes of the research according to the options they offer to families as follows:

• Center-based programs, which provide all services to families through the center-based option (center-based child development services plus other activities). These programs provide child development and child care services to children at their centers.

• Home-based programs, which provide all services to families through the home-based option (home visits plus other activities). These programs provide child development services during weekly home visits and are responsible for ensuring that families that need child care find care in the community that meets the revised Head Start Program Performance Standards.

• Mixed-approach programs,3   which provide services to some families through the center-based option and to some families through the home-based option, or provide services to families through the combination option or a locally designed option. These programs are responsible for providing child care directly or helping families arrange child care in the community that meets the revised Head Start Program Performance Standards.

When the research programs were initially funded, five were center-based, five were home­based, and seven were mixed-approach (they served some families through the center-based option, other families through the home-based option, or some families through both). By fall 1997, eight programs were home-based, four were center-based, and five were mixed-approach. These changes in approach resulted from subsequent funding decisions made after the programs were initiated, shifts in families’ needs, and recommendations of technical assistance providers. In some programs, changes are continuing to take place in response to changing family needs for child care and clearer ACYF expectations that Early Head Start programs are responsible for ensuring that all Early Head Start children who need child care receive care that meets the revised Head Start Program Performance Standards.

E. THE PROGRAM CONTEXT IN FALL 1997

In fall 1997, the national Early Head Start initiative and the 17 research programs were at a very early stage of program development. This was a dynamic period marked by the early implementation of welfare reform while ACYF was still putting the Early Head Start support infrastructure into place, including (1) preparing to implement the revised Head Start Program Performance Standards, (2) preparing for program monitoring to ensure compliance with the standards, and (3) refining training and technical assistance. These three aspects of the Early Head Start initiative’s development--along with participation as research sites--contributed to the research programs’ implementation of Early Head Start by fall 1997:

1. The revised Head Start Program Performance Standards had been announced but not yet put into effect. Early Head Start programs follow and are monitored according to the revised Head Start Program Performance Standards, which were published in November 1996 and took effect in January 1998 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families 1996). In fall 1997, the programs were still seeking clarification of some of the new regulations.

2. Monitoring visits by the Head Start Bureau had not yet taken place. Head Start Bureau staff conduct monitoring visits every three years to determine whether programs are in compliance with program guidelines and performance standards, to clarify practices and procedures related to the standards, and to recommend program improvements. While programs received ongoing guidance from Head Start Bureau program officers during early implementation, Wave I Early Head Start programs were first monitored in spring 1998, so some procedures in place in 1997 subsequently changed.

3. Training and technical assistance systems were not yet fully developed.4   In fall 1997, although the technical assistance system offered a broad range of training and support services to Early Head Start programs, technical assistance providers were still learning about Early Head Start program requirements. Training and technical assistance (T/TA) has been provided by the Early Head Start National Resource Center, administered by Zero to Three, and by the Head Start Training and Technical Assistance Network, which includes regional training centers that provide general program training and specific training for supporting program services for children with disabilities. Early technical assistance was not as intensive as planned, because the number of Wave I programs funded was greater than initially planned when the technical assistance contract was awarded. By 1998, a comprehensive T/TA system was in place that linked the National Resource Center and the Head Start Training and Technical Assistance Network and provided infant/toddler specialists within each U.S. Department of Health and Human Services region.

4. Participation in the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project complicated the task of implementation for the research programs. Random assignment required programs to recruit double the number of families they were funded to enroll and restricted enrollment to families with children under 12 months of age. In some communities, agencies were reluctant to refer families because they might not be randomly assigned to the program group. In fall 1997, some programs were still recruiting and enrolling families. In addition, while programs report that local research partners helped them think through expected outcomes and program services, research programs made significant investments in the process of building these partnerships, especially during the first two years of funding.

Thus, after approximately one year of providing Early Head Start services to children and families, in fall 1997 most research programs were still developing or fine-tuning their service delivery systems and in some cases seeking guidance and technical assistance from the Head Start Bureau. Some of the research programs, such as previous Comprehensive Child Development Programs and Parent Child Center programs, had to make major adjustments in their program focus or service mix. Other research programs, including several Head Start grantees, were serving families with infants and toddlers for the first time. All of the research programs were grappling with how to respond to the shifting needs of families in the wake of welfare reform, and some were contemplating significant adjustments to their service delivery approach. As reported in Volumes I and II of this report, however, programs were also offering many services consistent with the models they had proposed.

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1Events below the dotted line occurred after the site visits in which the data described in this report were collected.(back)

2For a more detailed description of these data, see Leading the Way: Characteristics and Early Experiences of Selected Early Head Start Programs, Volume 1: Cross-Site Perspectives, pages 31­32 (Administration on Children, Youth, and Families 1999).(back)

3Mixed approach is a research term and is not used in the revised Head Start Program Performance Standards.(back)

4For a more detailed description of the Early Head Start training and technical assistance system in fall 1997, see Leading the Way: Characteristics and Early Experiences of Selected Early Head Start Programs, Volume 1: Cross-Site Perspectives, pages 6-7.(back)

 

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