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Parents As Teachers

University of Idaho-Boise

dianed@uidaho.edu

Margaret Ritchie School of Family & Consumer Sciences

Parents as Teachers is a parent education program designed to help parents be the best teachers for their children in the early years. Parents as Teachers is a nationally developed research-based curriculum delivered through personal visits with families and group family meetings.

The University of Idaho Parents as Teachers Demonstration Project was initiated in December 1999 when the Office of the Governor contracted with the UI Cooperative Extension to develop a set of local Parents as Teachers programs in order to evaluate the fit of the program to Idaho communities and families. By May 2000, eight programs were in place in counties throughout the state and families began to enroll. By spring 2001 there were 13 local Parents as Teachers programs in the University of Idaho Demonstration Project. As of August 2001, 311 families and 458 children were enrolled in the program. Data collected from these families and children form the basis for this second annual report on the project.

• Parent education ranges from less than 8th grade to graduate and professional degrees.

• Half of the mothers in the program are employed and half don’t work outside the home.

• 79.4% are two-parent families, 15.8% single parent families, and 4.8% are extended family households.

• Household incomes range from under $8,000/year to over $64,000/year.

• Spanish is the first language in 11.6% of the homes.

• 8.7% of parents are teens.

• Family size ranges from parents expecting their first child to those with 4 or more children.

• 27 of the children in the program were born prematurely and 17 were low birth-weight.

• Screenings by parent educators have identified 6 concerns about children’s vision, 7 for hearing, 8 health issues and 22 concerns about developmental delay.

• All parents who were given a referral for these concerns report that they followed up by consulting a trained professional.

After one year in the program, parents report:

• Greater confidence in their abilities as parents.

• Increased knowledge of child development, including recent research on brain development.

• Improved ability to work with their children.

After one year in the program, parents say they:

• Read more with their children.

• Do more activities with their children.

• Are better connected to other parents with children.

• Regularly follow up on parenting lessons at home between monthly visits.

After one year in the program, parents report that:

• 95.5% are very satisfied with the personal visits in Parents as Teachers.

• 79.3% are very satisfied with the group parent meetings.

• They would unanimously recommend the program to other parents.

After 18 months of program operation:

• 89% of families are still with the program.

• Retention of our parent educators is 100%.

• U of I Parents as Teachers programs are all full at this time and there are 40 families on waiting lists.

Next steps for the University of Idaho Parents as Teachers Demonstration Project include evaluation of:

• Longer term effects of the program on parents and children.

• School readiness and transition to kindergarten for Parents as Teachers children.

• The fit of Parents as Teachers to Idaho communities.