Home Start

Guide to Effective Programs
for Children and Youth

HOME START

OVERVIEW

Home Start is a home visiting program that was created to determine whether the home-visiting approach might be more effective than Head Start’s center-based approach. The program’s goal is to foster healthy families in order to create safe and nurturing environments for children. Specifically, Home Start aims to empower a mother to be a successful teacher for her children in their own home. Several impacts have been found during the program, but mostly toward the last year of it. Impacts have been found for school readiness, detection of developmental problems, staying on task, and some aspects of nutrition. Impacts have also been found for the parent variables of mother involvement, number of books and playthings in the home, and housing authority resource use.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target Population: children in families at risk of child abuse or neglect

Home Start is a one-year, home-visitation program. It is designed to empower mothers to be successful teachers for their children in their own homes. The home visitors come once or twice a week, and they discuss topics with the parents, refer the parents to agencies for services, and inform parents about group activities with other Home Start parents. The visitors discuss child development, nutrition, health, and needs of family members.

EVALUATIONS OF PROGRAM

Deloria, D., Love, J., Goedinghaus, L., Gordon, S., Hanvey, R., Hockman, E., et al. (1974). The National Home Start evaluation interim report 4: Summative evaluation results. Cambridge, MA: Abt Associates.

Evaluated Population: Two-hundred fifty-one Home Start parents and 162 control parents from six sites were evaluated. The parents were mostly from low-income households, and mothers had a mean of 9.7 grades completed. About 28 percent of mothers graduated from high school, 41 percent of families had neither parent employed, and mother’s mean age was30. Eighty-five percent of children were up-to-date on immunizations, but had not seen a doctor in about eight months. Forty-five percent of families were receiving public assistance. On average, the children themselves were below the mean for height and weight and did not receive the required nutrition for their age.

Approach: Families were randomly assigned to the experimental group or a delayed-entry control group. Data were collected at baseline, six months, and twelve months. The authors collected data on school readiness, developmental problems, foods eaten, nutrition, height, weight, parent-rated behavior, community interviewer-rated behavior, child’s home environment, mother’s behavior, child’s medical history, parent’s involvement in activities outside the home, and parent’s use of community resources. School readiness was measured by two tests, one on general knowledge and one on basic concepts. Developmental problems screened were fine motor adaptive, language, gross motor, and personal-social. Child food intake was reported by the mother, who told the interviewer what the child had eaten in the 24 hours prior to the interview. The parent-reported behaviors were task orientation, extraversion-introversion, and hostility-tolerance. The community interviewer rated the child’s overall behavior during the interview by means of nine “bipolar adjectives,” such as resistive-cooperative or quiet-talkative. Then, he or she measured the child’s behavior during the testing.

The parent measures were mostly self-report. The child’s home environment was measured by a questionnaire filled out by the parent. The questionnaire consisted of constructs measuring warm mother involvement, a checklist of available playthings, and measured formal teaching by the mother, whether the child helps with household tasks, if books or reading were available, supportive behavior, and style of punishment. The parent was also interviewed and reported on the child’s medical history, specifically the length of time since the child last saw a doctor, reasons for the most recent doctor visit, and help available outside the family for arranging doctor visits. Parent participation in community activities outside the home was also measured and includes, but is not limited to, the PTA, church organizations, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4-H, and political organizations.

The community interviewer filled out a scale on the mother’s behavior after the last visit with the family, and observed the mother and child in an eight-block sorting task. The parent’s comments were grouped into nine categories: request talking, request understanding, request placement, talk about, unclassified, feedback, correction, child talk, and child classified. There were only three categories for behavior: mother moves blocks, mother punishes, and child moves blocks.

Results: The Home Start program had a significantly higher report of the number of vitamin-A vegetables consumed by the child compared with the control group. All other child variables were not significant. For the parent variables, the Home Start group reported using more outside help when arranging doctor visits compared with the control group. All other parent variables were not significant. No impacts were found on the block sorting task.

Deloria, D., Coelen, C., & Ruopp, R. (1974). National Home Start evaluation interim report V: Executive summary policy relevant findings and recommendations. Cambridge, MA: Abt Associates.

Evaluated Population: See previous report.

Approach: Report five is a summary of the three-year evaluation taking place from 1972 to 1975. The same variables as the previous report were collected, as well as whether the child had been to the dentist.

Results: The program had favorable impacts on the following child variables: overall school readiness, presence of developmental problems with language, the number of task-related comments the child made during the block task, parent-report of child’s task orientation, weight, milk consumption, meat consumption, number of months since the previous doctor visit, reason for doctor visit (Home Start had a higher number of check-up appointments while the control group had a higher number of illness-related appointments), and whether the child had been to the dentist. Parent variables that were significant were the following: mother involvement at home, child helps with household tasks, mother teaches child, the mother’s comments made by the mother during the block task, type of behavior during the block task, number of books in the home, number of playthings in the home, and housing authority resource use.

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

References:

Deloria, D., Coelen, C., & Ruopp, R. (1974). National Home Start evaluation interim report V: Executive summary policy relevant findings and recommendations. Cambridge, MA: Abt Associates.

Deloria, D., Fellenz, P., Love, J., Ruopp, R., Butler, L., Kearins, K., et al. (1973). Home Start evaluation study interim report II: Program analysis revised draft. Cambridge, MA: Abt Associates.

Deloria, D., Love, J., Goedinghaus, L., Hockman, E., & Hanvey, R. (1973). Home Start evaluation study interim report III: Summative evaluation results. Cambridge, MA: Abt Associates.

Deloria, D., Love, J., Hockman, E., Goedinghaus, L., & Clement-Murphy, S. (1973). The National Home Start evaluation interim report II: Summative evaluation results. Cambridge, MA: Abt Associates.

KEYWORDS: Cost Information is Available, Manual is Available, Toddlers (12-36 months), Males and Females (co-ed), Black/African American, High-risk, Urban, Home-based, Home Visitation, Parent Training/Education, Other Behavioral Problems, Other Social/Emotional Health, Health Status/Conditions, Nutrition, Parent-child relationship.

Program information last updated on 11/9/11.