Effective Services for Young Children Report of a Workshop (1991) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Attributes of Effective Services for Young Children: A Brief Survey of Current Knowledge and Implications for Program and Policy Development
Attributes of Effective Services for Young Children: A Brief Survey of Current Knowledge and Implications for Program and Policy Development
Pages 23-47
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 23... ...
The final section is an attempt to tease out some of the implications of current findings about the attributes of effective programs, perhaps the most important of which is that the development, spread, and successful operation of effective programs requires changes in the systems within which programs are funded, held accountable, evaluated, and within which they recruit and retain personnel. THE POLICY CONTEXT The services, programs, and interventions that are the focus of this paper are a subset of the broader range of antipoverty policies and other social policies needed to improve outcomes for children and families in the United 23
|
From page 24... ...
The commission recommended that identifying and removing the antecedent risk factors was society's "most cost efficient chance of reducing the stacked odds" for these young people and recommended toward this end "comprehensive, flexible, and coordinated services beginning early in life including family planning, prenatal health care, preparent training, continuing parent counseling and support, nutritional services, child care, early childhood education, and health education."
|
From page 25... ...
Although the families in which these children live are found in both urban and rural areas, they are becoming increasingly concentrated in innercity neighborhoods characterized by high rates of single-parent families, school dropout, early unmarried childbearing, long-term welfare dependency, unemployment, violent crime, social isolation, and inadequate schools and services (Wilson, 1987~. Improved health, education, and social services would raise the chances of a productive life for all children, particularly for all poor children.
|
From page 26... ...
The attempt to achieve the quantitative precision of research in the biological and physical sciences has interfered with meaningful evaluation of many kinds of human services. The pursuit of quantitative elegance has been particularly destructive in the evaluation of programs for the disadvantaged, because the very elements that make these programs effective among disadvantaged populations pose the greatest hurdles to the evaluator.
|
From page 27... ...
The approach taken in this paper combines information from theory, research, and experience from such different domains as preschool, primary, and secondary education; health care; child care; social services; family support; and job training. It combines informed judgments with a synthesis of quantitative data to the extent they are available and seems to reflect program operations and outcomes sensibly and accurately.
|
From page 28... ...
(Zabin et al., 1986) Comprehensive prenatal Johns Hopkins University Low birth weight care for 744 school-age School of Medicine (<2,500 am)
|
From page 29... ...
Among mothers who smoked: Premature births: 2% participants: 10% controls: (Olds et al., 1986) Comprehensive health, Yale University Child At 10-year follow up: child care and social Study Center Average years of services for 18 infants aged education completed 0-21/2 and their families.
|
From page 30... ...
Preschool education and The Perry Preschool Of 121 responding at age weekly home visits over Program High/Scope 19: two-year period for 3- and Partic. Control 4-year-old randomly Employed 59% 32% assigned poor black H.S.
|
From page 31... ...
Schorr (1988) described the operation of some 17 programs in the fields of family planning, prenatal care, child health, child welfare/family support, child care and preschool education, and elementary school education that
|
From page 32... ...
To arrive at an updated set of essential attributes of effective programs, I have reviewed my own earlier findings, as well as the findings of others who have reviewed successful programs for young children in health, child care, preschool and elementary education, mental health, and social services. I have also incorporated findings from studies of effective schools, job training programs, programs for teenage mothers, and other interventions aimed primarily at adolescents and young adults, to the extent that they shed light on overarching characteristics of effective services.
|
From page 33... ...
and the creation of "a warm, supportive environment" (Weiss, 1988) is repeatedly stressed when program staff are asked to reflect on program effectiveness, as is the need to draw disadvantaged populations into "a sense of membership in the community" (Whelage, 1989)
|
From page 34... ...
They have come to believe that, if they are to effectively perform their formal functions of providing health, education, or social services, these services must be provided in a style similar to that with which families have traditionally responded. Successful programs are well-managed, usually by highly competent, energetic, committed, and responsible individuals with clearly identifiable skills and attitudes.
|
From page 35... ...
William Shakespeare Perhaps the most striking conclusion that emerges from looking at these characteristics of effective programs is how different they are from most
|
From page 36... ...
With the notable exception of the Head Start program initiated as part of the War on Poverty and the efforts to institutionalize family preservation and certain aspects of school reform, a policy thrust to undertake systematic social change to make these unusual attributes the norm has not been seriously considered among developers of social policy. In fact, a quite contrary view is typical.
|
From page 37... ...
Local communities have to own and shape local programs, but local communities can't change state and federal regulations or funding incentives; nor can they protect their innovations from bureaucratic pressures that stifle the unusual. Strategies based on the creation and dissemination of models are less likely to succeed than strategies that combine identifying and disseminating the essential common attributes of successful programs with identifying and reducing the major impediments to implementing effective programs.
|
From page 38... ...
By shifting accountability from a reliance on rigid rules and on documenting processes to a reliance on substantive results, human service programs could more easily adopt the attributes of effective programs (see Kelman, 1987, 1990; Hornbeck, in this volume; Gardner, 1989~. It will require a great deal of sustained and thoughtful work to develop the critical outcome indicators that would allow informed judgments of whether a program is in fact accomplishing its intended purpose.
|
From page 39... ...
The availability of high- quality professional training could also help to make work in effective programs attractive to a new pool of talented, eager, and committed individuals. States, communities, and local agencies will need competent technical assistance, both in program development and in their efforts to change policies and practices to better reflect the lessons of successful programs.
|
From page 40... ...
Among the functions that are not now being performed in an integrated fashion, that might usefully be performed by one or more organizations (existing or newly formed for this purpose, are the following: · To be a source of reliable and up-to-date information regarding the attributes of effective programs and the attributes of effective or promising systems change. This would entail the capacity to perform continuing assessments of current efforts in program and policy development and implementation, to determine whether there are common patterns thatcharacterize the most promising efforts, and to identify the most successful strategies for overcoming major obstacles and to communicate widely findings regarding both effective and ineffective efforts.
|
From page 41... ...
But the levers of change that have been available until now are not sufficiently connected to one another and are not strong or far-reaching enough to bring about needed changes in the systems within which most programs operate. Much activity and random experimentation is currently under way in local communities and states all around the nation aimed at improving the circumstances of disadvantaged children, but to little discernible long-range effect.
|
From page 42... ...
New York: Grune & Stratton. Harvard Family Research Project 1990 Innovative Models to Guide Family Support and Education Policy in the 1990s: An Analysis of Four Pioneering State Programs.
|
From page 43... ...
1984 Risk reduction in pregnancies of low income women: comprehensive prenatal care through the OB access project. Mobius 4:34-43.
|
From page 44... ...
Hardy 1986 Evaluation of a pregnancy prevention program for urban teenagers. Family Planning Perspectives 18(3)
|
From page 45... ...
1984 Risk reduction in pregnancies of low income women: Comprehensive prenatal care through the OB access project. Mobius 4:34-43.
|
From page 46... ...
Tatelbaum, and R Chamberlin 1986 Improving the delivery of prenatal care and outcomes of pregnancy: A randomized trial of nurse home visitation.
|
From page 47... ...
1986 Evaluation of a pregnancy prevention program for urban teenagers. Family Planning Perspectives 18(3)
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.