Class

Article

College

Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services

Faculty Mentor

Lori Roggman

Presentation Type

Poster Presentation

Abstract

Home visiting is a commonly used intervention to assist families with children who are at risk for poor development due to being raised in poverty or having developmental delays, the Early Head Start program being one of the most well-known. This program aims to support families, helping the family foster their child’s development. Research has been conducted showing that these home visiting programs result in positive effects on children’s social-emotional and cognitive functioning at various stages of childhood (Peterson et al., 2012). The more heavily involved families are in the EHS programs, the more positive the outcomes are on the child’s development. As a result, it is imperative that we understand how we might increase enrollment and retention. The purpose of this project is to explore the effect that high-quality home visiting has on retention and family engagement. Home visits were video recorded for 65 families receiving Early Head Start services. These recordings were coded for home visitor practices and skills, and family engagement using the Home Visit Rating Scales (HOVRS A+ v2.1:Roggman, et al., 2014). When the children left the program at 36 months, family enrollment and retention data were collected. This study found that the quality of the home visit (determined using HOVRS) did not have a significant effect on the duration for which the family engaged in the EHS programs. It is possible that the results could have been affected by our relatively small sample size, as only approximately one-third of the participants did not engage in the EHS program for the maximum possible time, thus skewing results. Another possible explanation is the level of parent engagement; parents that were given higher ratings of engagement were more likely to spend the maximum possible time of engagement in the program.

Location

The South Atrium

Start Date

4-12-2018 3:00 PM

End Date

4-12-2018 4:15 PM

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Apr 12th, 3:00 PM Apr 12th, 4:15 PM

Exploring the Influence of Home Visit Quality on Program Retention

The South Atrium

Home visiting is a commonly used intervention to assist families with children who are at risk for poor development due to being raised in poverty or having developmental delays, the Early Head Start program being one of the most well-known. This program aims to support families, helping the family foster their child’s development. Research has been conducted showing that these home visiting programs result in positive effects on children’s social-emotional and cognitive functioning at various stages of childhood (Peterson et al., 2012). The more heavily involved families are in the EHS programs, the more positive the outcomes are on the child’s development. As a result, it is imperative that we understand how we might increase enrollment and retention. The purpose of this project is to explore the effect that high-quality home visiting has on retention and family engagement. Home visits were video recorded for 65 families receiving Early Head Start services. These recordings were coded for home visitor practices and skills, and family engagement using the Home Visit Rating Scales (HOVRS A+ v2.1:Roggman, et al., 2014). When the children left the program at 36 months, family enrollment and retention data were collected. This study found that the quality of the home visit (determined using HOVRS) did not have a significant effect on the duration for which the family engaged in the EHS programs. It is possible that the results could have been affected by our relatively small sample size, as only approximately one-third of the participants did not engage in the EHS program for the maximum possible time, thus skewing results. Another possible explanation is the level of parent engagement; parents that were given higher ratings of engagement were more likely to spend the maximum possible time of engagement in the program.