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The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.

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PROGRAM FOUNDATIONS BUILDING CAPACITY FOR QUALITY PROGRAMS

A Conversation With Jeanne Brooks-Gunn

Jeanne Brooks-Gunn reflects on the breakthrough findings and new directions for research, evaluation, and practice in family-focused interventions.

Holly Kreider (Winter 2004/2005) Evaluation Exchange Article

Advocating for the Rights of Undocumented Families

Moria Cappio and Melanie Reyes from The Children’s Aid Society share their experiences reinventing family engagement strategies in their East Harlem Early Head Start/Head Start program to reach out to immigrant families by including parent civic advocacy. Cappio and Reyes also describe how using an advocacy evaluation tool helped them navigate these uncharted waters.

Moria Cappio , Melanie Reyes (May 2010) Research Report

Alternative Designs for Community-Based Research: Pittsburgh’s Early Childhood Initiative

Stephen Bagnato, Robert Grom, and Leon Haynes describe an evaluation design that provides scientific rigor in a community setting.

Stephen Bagnato, Ed.D. , Robert Grom, Leon Haynes (Fall 2003) Evaluation Exchange Article

Changing the Conversation About Home Visiting: Scaling Up With Quality

The purpose of this paper is to determine what the evidence and conventional wisdom say about scaling up home visiting as one of the best ways to support parents and promote early childhood development. To answer this question, we examined the available research evidence, interviewed leaders from six of the national home visiting models, and interviewed researchers who have studied home visiting. The area of interest for guiding future research, practice, and policy is whether home visiting can be delivered at broad scale and with the quality necessary to attain demonstrable, positive outcomes for young children and their parents.

Heather Weiss , Lisa Klein (May 2007) Research Report

Closing the Achievement Gap: Head Start and Beyond

Ed Zigler, Ron Haskins, and G. Reid Lyon discuss the past and future of Head Start, the country's first federally funded early childhood program.

Lisa G. Klein (Summer 2004) Evaluation Exchange Article

Community Collaboration 90806: A Partnership to Increase School Readiness in Long Beach

Marielle Bohan-Baker describes the instructive and collaborative approach to planning and evaluation of six community partners in Long Beach, California.

Marielle Bohan-Baker (Fall 2003) Evaluation Exchange Article

Conjoint Behavioral Consultation: A Model to Facilitate Meaningful Partnerships for Families and Schools

Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln studied the effectiveness of a behavioral intervention model where parents, educators, and service providers work collaboratively to address children's developmental needs in a Head Start program.

Susan M. Sheridan , Brandy L. Clarke, Diane C. Marti, Jennifer D. Burt, Ashley M. Rohlk (April 2005) Research Report

Continuous Improvement: Being Responsive When There is Need for Change

Deborah J. Brown, external evaluator for Save the Children, discusses how continuous improvement processes have helped strengthen one of Save the Children’s language development and pre-literacy programs, Early Steps to School Success.

Deborah J. Brown (September 17, 2013) Research Report

Data Collection Instruments for Evaluating Family Involvement

As evidence mounts that family involvement can support children's learning, there is an increasing call in the field for common data collection instruments to measure home–school communication and other aspects of family involvement. This resource from Harvard Family Research Project compiles instruments developed for rigorous program impact evaluations and tested for reliability.

 

Helen Westmoreland , Suzanne Bouffard, Kelley O'Carroll, Heidi Rosenberg (May 2009) Research Report

Designing Quality Assessment Tools in Early Childhood Education and Youth Development

Ted Jurkiewicz and Charles Hohmann from the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation describe the design of High/Scope's new Youth Program Quality Assessment tool.

Ted Jurkiewicz , Charles Hohmann (Spring 2004) Evaluation Exchange Article

Early Childhood Programs and Evaluation

This issue of The Evaluation Exchange charts the course of early childhood programming and evaluation over nearly half a century. Contributing authors offer a range of views on how best to communicate the importance of investing in a child’s early years and how to improve early childhood programs and policies. Several articles consider the explosion of science—from longitudinal studies of child outcomes to a large-scale demonstration program—that has helped forward our understanding of how young children learn and grow. Finally, a number of articles suggest that better information is needed to close the persistent gap in achievement between children from low-income families and those from middle-income homes.

Evaluation Exchange Issue

Early Head Start Research-Program Partnerships

An in-depth look at the challenges presented by the evaluation of the Early Head Start program - an evaluation which required the cooperation of multiple layers of research and program partners.

Helen Raikes, Ph.D. , John M. Love, Rachel Chazan-Cohen, Martha Staker (Spring 2002) Evaluation Exchange Article

Early Head Start: Further Lessons

Catherine Ayoub and Barbara Pan, from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, describe their work collecting and analyzing longitudinal data to supplement national findings from the Early Head Start study.

Catherine C. Ayoub, Ed.D. , Barbara Alexander Pan, Ph.D. (Summer 2004) Evaluation Exchange Article

Early to Read: A Local Emergent Literacy Initiative

This article describes a Knight Foundation early literacy initiative in Philadelphia and its ongoing evaluation.

Julie K. Kohler, Ph.D. , Julie E. Tarr, Ed.D., Elizabeth Jaeger, Ph.D., Randi Strosberg Berry, Ph.D. (Summer 2004) Evaluation Exchange Article

Embracing the Use of Data for Continuous Program Improvement

In this Commentary, Harvard Family Research Project’s Heidi Rosenberg discusses how continuous improvement processes can strengthen family engagement strategies, and outlines the mindset and key practices that organizations need to adopt in order to use data to understand and improve upon their work.

Heidi Rosenberg (September 17, 2013) Research Report

Engaging Families in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Project-Based Learning

To be successful, children need a strong science, technology, engineering, and math foundation. Learn how Iridescent, a project funded in part by the National Science Foundation, connects families, engineers, and children to develop these skills early on in school.

Tara Chklovski (March 19, 2015) Research Report

Evaluating a Professional Development “Cascade”: From Facilitators to University Faculty to Early Childhood Providers

Caroline Wilkinson and Shelley Billig from RMC Research Corporation describe their evaluation of the New England Professional Development Initiative's cascade approach to professional development in early childhood education.

Caroline Wilkinson , Shelley H. Billig (Winter 2005/2006) Evaluation Exchange Article

Evaluating Early Childhood Services: What's Really Behind the Curtain

Jack Shonkoff, dean of the Heller School at Brandeis University, describes the highly politicized environment of program evaluation and its attendant challenges.

Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D. (Summer 2004) Evaluation Exchange Article

Evaluating Education Reform: Early Childhood Education

Over the past three decades, an enormous body of research literature has been amassed on early childhood education, parent education, and family support programs. This review summarizes these three areas of research and reports on relevant research in progress.

Anne Mitchell , Heather Weiss, Tom Schultz (1992) Research Report

Evaluation Based on Theories of the Policy Process

Harvard Family Research Project explains how it helps to ground evaluation in theories of the policy process.

Julia Coffman (Spring 2007) Evaluation Exchange Article

Examining the Efficacy of Two Models of Preschool Professional Development in Language and Literacy

Nancy Clark-Chiarelli from Education Development Center, Inc. describes an evaluation of two approaches to early literacy professional development—one with a traditional face-to-face mode of delivery and one with a technology-enhanced component.

Nancy Clark-Chiarelli (Winter 2005/2006) Evaluation Exchange Article

Family Involvement News: September 2013

We are committed to keeping you up to date on what's new in family engagement. View our list of links to current reports, articles, resources, and events in the field.

Harvard Family Research Project (September 17, 2013) Research Report

Framing Program Evaluation: Why We Should Tinker With Theories of Change and Logic Models

While evaluation needs may vary, all organizations can benefit from utilizing theory-based evaluation tools to frame evaluation efforts. This article explores how three organizations developed their program’s theory of change and logic model.

Carolina Buitrago (November 19, 2015) Research Report

From the Director's Desk

An introduction to the issue on Early Childhood Programs and Evaluation by HFRP's Founder & Director, Heather B. Weiss, Ed.D.

Heather B. Weiss, Ed.D. (Summer 2004) Evaluation Exchange Article

Grantmaking to School Districts: Lessons for Foundations

This brief offers lessons and best practices from foundations across the country on grantmaking to school districts. It offers advice to foundations that are considering school district investments for the first time. It also offers a useful "check" to more experienced foundations that want to examine their thinking and approaches against the lessons and practices of other foundations.

Julia Coffman , Heather Weiss, Erin Harris, Priscilla M.D. Little (September 2010) Research Report

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Published by Harvard Family Research Project