This program is for parents of children who are 16- to 48-months old.

ParentChild+, formerly called Mother-Child Home Program or Parent-Child Home Program, is a community-based, literacy-promotion and parenting program for families with low income. This program is designed to help prepare young children for school achievement by developing parent-child interaction, improving child socio-emotional development, and enhancing school readiness.

Several internal evaluations have produced mixed results. While one quasi-experimental study and one posttest-only study found evidence of a program effect on school readiness, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) failed to fully demonstrate this effect. In addition, the RCT found no program effects on children's socio-emotional development. However, the RCT did produce evidence of a program effect on mother-child interaction as observed in a 10-minute post-program play activity. Another quasi-experimental, posttest-only study in a sample of ethnic and linguistic minority toddlers found that the intervention group had larger expressive vocabularies, relative to a comparison group, after 1 year of the 2-year home visiting program. Results indicated that Spanish-speaking children experienced a greater benefit from program intervention than English-speaking children. However, study limitations, such as small sample sizes, unmatched groups, psychometric properties of outcome measures, and other uncontrolled threats to internal validity, across evaluations make it difficult to reach firm conclusions about program effectiveness.

The ParentChild+ program is delivered by home visitors, referred to as early learning specialists, who are overseen by site coordinators. Early learning specialists bring books and toys to the family’s home to stimulate reading and play. Each book and toy are accompanied by a guide sheet that instructs early learning specialists and parents about the intellectually stimulating properties of the items and how to use them. The program curriculum includes the following elements:

• Verbal Interaction Techniques – These techniques stimulate the child’s intellectual growth through parent-child interaction that is centered around books and toys;
• Positive Parenting Behavior – The early learning specialist models positive parenting behaviors including responding verbally to the child’s verbal or nonverbal requests for attention, verbalizing affection toward the child, and clearly verbalizing child expectations;
• Social Emotional Development – Positive parenting is practiced as a way of developing children’s relationships with the world around them and themselves;
• Curriculum materials – Families receive cognitively stimulating books and toys that act as a means of initiating and sustaining positive parent-child communication and play.

In addition, early learning specialists help families locate community resources and assist parents in enrolling their children in pre-school programs.

This program can be delivered as a one-on-one model, where early learning specialists meet with parents and their child, or the program can be delivered as a home-based child care model where early learning specialists work with providers and support them and the families they care for.

Developed in 1965, the ParentChild+ program has partnered with 142 agencies in 15 states and six countries across the world.

Training is required. Site coordinators are typically a professional in a field such as early childhood or parenting education, nursing, psychology, or social work. Early learning specialists are typically former program parent participants and/or community residents. In-person and online training is available. Please use details in the Contact section for more information.

Considerations for implementing this program include obtaining funds to implement the program, which includes paying staff salaries and purchasing books and toys for each family; recruiting program staff and families; ensuring staff complete training; understanding this program requires commitment from families with small children and retention of participants may be difficult; and locating space to hold the weekly supervision meetings.

The Clearinghouse can help address these considerations. Please call 1-877-382-9185 or email Clearinghouse@psu.edu

If you are interested in implementing ParentChild+, the Clearinghouse is interested in helping you!
Please call 1-877-382-9185 or email Clearinghouse@psu.edu

ParentChild+ is a 2-year program and includes 92 home visits, which occur twice weekly for 30 minutes each.

The average implementation cost per family in ParentChild+ is $2,800. This cost varies by location and population.

To move ParentChild+ to the Promising category on the Clearinghouse Continuum of Evidence, at least one evaluation should be performed demonstrating a consistent pattern of positive effects lasting at least one year from the beginning of the program or at least six months from program completion.

The Clearinghouse can help you develop an evaluation plan to ensure the program components are meeting your goals. Please call 1-877-382-9185 or email Clearinghouse@psu.edu

Contact the Clearinghouse with any questions regarding this program.
Phone: 1-877-382-9185 or Email: Clearinghouse@psu.edu

You may also contact ParentChild+ by mail 242 West 30th Street, Suite 1100, New York, NY 10001, phone 1-516-883-7480, email info@parentchildplus.org, or visit https://www.parentchildplus.org/

https://www.parentchildplus.org/; https://www.cebc4cw.org/program/parentchildplus/; and Levenstein, Levenstein, Shiminski, and Stolzberg (1998).