Resource Library

Recent federal, state, and local policies and initiatives focus on increasing access to high-quality ECE for all families. Given the prevalence and potential importance of these initiatives for families and children, it is useful for the field to take stock of how access to ECE is conceptualized and measured and to understand the extent to which context, purposes, and available indicators shape the assessment of access.

A companion to the literature review entitled Human Services Research Dissemination: What Works...

This research brief summarizes the state of the field on cultural competence in social services. The information is relevant for organizations serving children and families from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds, but the brief highlights research and strategies in serving Hispanic populations. The brief describes cultural competence and provides service providers and administrators with concrete strategies for the ongoing self-reflection and development that is key to strengthening...

What does “curriculum” mean when applied to working with infants and toddlers?

This brief discusses the meaning of the term when applied to early education and care programs serving families with infants and toddlers. The discussion focuses on how programs can incorporate and use the concepts of a curriculum in a way that is developmentally appropriate for infants and toddlers...

Mathematica is seeking nominations for measures of mutual reinforcement, or related constructs, to help us develop a new and unique measure of two-generation programs. Such a measure could help stakeholders better understand program characteristics that appear to help children and their families, and whether these programs produce the intended positive outcomes at the family level. We are producing this new measure in partnership with the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE)...

Administrative data have the potential to help us answer pressing social policy questions. Government stakeholders and researchers are exploring the promises of using administrative data for research purposes.

This brief summarizes an Innovative Methods Meeting that was organized by OPRE in the fall of 2015 that considered the potential benefits and pitfalls of using administrative data for research purposes...

This brief from the Understanding the Value of Centralized Services Study was developed for clients who informed the study during the study design and qualitative data collection.

This OPRE brief uses data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES 2019) to explore Head Start programs’ interaction with other systems such as licensing, QRISs, as well as with non-Head Start sources of funding like state and local pre-K.

This practitioner-focused brief provides strategies learned from the Understanding Children’s Transitions from Head Start to Kindergarten (HS2K) project’s collective work and real-life examples of how Head Start programs and Local Education Agencies (LEAs) work together to support kindergarten transitions.

Discover the final report from the Understanding the Value of Centralized Services study describes the advantages, disadvantages, and costs of providing multiple services in a single location to support individuals and families with low incomes.