Partnership to Develop Meaningful
Outcome Measures for Early Head Start
Children and Families

Abstract:

With the recent emphasis on outcome-oriented accountability, Early Head Start educators are increasingly asked to define and measure outcomes for infants and toddlers.  There is a growing awareness that quality of programs should move beyond how well they comply with regulations and address instead how well they promote children's progress toward stated goals.  Responding to this new emphasis, the Early Head Start (EHS) Program Performance Measurement Initiative, has recommended three key outcomes that should guide EHS programs: (1) to strengthen families as primary nurturers of the children, (2) to enhance parent-child relationships, and (3) to enhance children's growth and development (Administration on Children, Youth, & Families, 2003).  Guided by this new conceptual framework, this proposal seeks to add to the knowledge and practice base on early childhood measurement by developing growth indicators that EHS programs can use to enhance program practices and improve child outcomes.  More specifically, our research team at the Juniper Gardens Children's Project at the University of Kansas, working with two existing EHS program partners, plans to develop, validate, and disseminate two measures; one for monitoring children's growth in communication and one for monitoring change in parents' responsiveness toward children.  We expect that working with EHS partners, we will develop measures that program staff find useful not only in measuring progress of children in families in programs but also for use in determining when programs themselves are being effective in being agents of positive change.  Having effective and efficient tools for assessing children and families will give EHS educators essential information for guiding and informing program improvement and intervention efforts.

This research team recognizes the extensive effort by EHS programs to strengthen the professional development of EHS educators and to improve upon the curriculum offered to very young children.  Through the proposed partnerships, we would therefore work together with EHS educators in developing and testing assessments to monitor the performance of children in EHS to ensure that all children are making progress toward important outcomes, and to identify areas where support is most needed for promoting children's outcome's and their readiness for preschool programs.  The project activities supporting this project will include (a) the development, testing and adaptation of assessments for monitoring the progress of infants and toddlers in language and responsiveness between parents, caregivers and children, (b) professional development activities related to the training and administration of the assessments, and to their use in monitoring growth and making intervention decisions, and (c) the dissemination of these assessment approaches to other EHS sites.

Contact Information:
Judith J. Carta
University of Kansas
Juniper Gardens Children's Project
650 Minnesota Ave. 2nd Floor
Kansas City, KS 66101
Phone: (913) 321-3143, Fax: (913) 371-8522
Email:carta@ku.edu