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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

PARENTING

MATTERS
SUPPORTING PARENTS OF CHILDREN AGES 0–8

Committee on Supporting the Parents of Young Children
Vivian L. Gadsden, Morgan Ford, and Heather Breiner, Editors
Board on Children, Youth, and Families
Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
A Report of

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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

COMMITTEE ON SUPPORTING THE
PARENTS OF YOUNG CHILDREN
VIVIAN L. GADSDEN (Chair), School of Education, University of
Pennsylvania
CLARE ANDERSON, Chapin Hall, University of Chicago
OSCAR A. BARBARIN, III, Department of African American Studies,
University of Maryland, College Park
RICHARD P. BARTH, School of Social Work, University of Maryland,
Baltimore
WILLIAM R. BEARDSLEE, Department of Psychiatry, Boston Children’s
Hospital and Harvard Medical School
KIMBERLY BOLLER, Mathematica Policy Research, Princeton, New Jersey
NATASHA J. CABRERA, Department of Human Development and
Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park
ERIC DEARING, Department of Counseling, Developmental, and
Educational Psychology, Boston College
GREG J. DUNCAN, School of Education, University of California, Irvine
NORMA FINKELSTEIN, Institute for Health and Recovery, Cambridge,
Massachusetts
ELENA FUENTES-AFFLICK, Department of Pediatrics, University of
California, San Francisco
IHEOMA U. IRUKA, Buffett Early Childhood Institute, University of
Nebraska
SAMUEL L. ODOM, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute,

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
BARBARA ROGOFF, Department of Psychology, University of
California, Santa Cruz
MARK A. SCHUSTER, Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical
School, and Department of Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital
SELCUK R. SIRIN, Department of Applied Psychology, New York
University
KASISOMAYAJULA (VISH) VISWANATH, Department of Social and
Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, and Health
Communications Core, Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center
MICHAEL S. WALD, School of Law, Stanford University
MORGAN A. FORD, Study Director
HEATHER BREINER, Associate Program Officer
SARAH TRACEY, Research Associate (until April 2016)
KELSEY GEISER, Research Assistant
STACEY SMIT, Senior Program Assistant
v

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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

ANTHONY JANIFER, Program Assistant (until December 2015)
PAMELLA ATAYI, Administrative Assistant
BRIDGET KELLEY, Acting Director, Board on Children, Youth, and
Families (from July to September 2015)
KIMBER BOGARD, Director, Board on Children, Youth, and Families
(until July 2015)
NATACHA BLAIN, Director, Board on Children, Youth, and Families

(from November 2015)
KATHERINE J. GOLD, James C. Puffer /American Board of Family
Medicine Fellow
LISA ALSTON, Financial & Administrative Officer (starting July 2015)
FAYE HILLMAN, Financial Associate (until July 2015)

vi

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BOARD ON CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES
ANGELA DIAZ (Chair), Departments of Pediatrics and Preventive
Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
SHARI BARKIN, Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital, Vanderbilt
University
THOMAS F. BOAT, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati
W. THOMAS BOYCE, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
DAVID A. BRENT, Western Psychiatric Institute and University of
Pittsburgh School of Medicine
DAVID V.B. BRITT, Retired CEO, Sesame Workshop
DEBBIE I. CHANG, Nemours Health and Prevention Services
PATRICK H. DELEON, F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine and the
Graduate School of Nursing Uniformed Services University of the
Health Sciences
ELENA FUENTES-AFFLICK, University of California, San Francisco,
and San Francisco General Hospital

EUGENE E. GARCIA, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers’ College, Arizona State
University
J. DAVID HAWKINS, School of Social Work, University of Washington
JEFFREY W. HUTCHINSON, Uniformed Services University of the
Health Sciences
JACQUELINE JONES, Foundation for Child Development, New York, NY
ANN S. MASTEN, Institute of Child Development, University of
Minnesota
VELMA MCBRIDE MURRY, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University
BRUCE S. MCEWEN, Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory
of Neuroendocrinology, The Rockefeller University
MARTIN J. SEPULVEDA, IBM Fellow (retired), Research Division, IBM
Corporation
TAHA E. TAHA, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins
University
NATACHA BLAIN, Director, Board on Children, Youth, and Families

vii

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Acknowledgments

The committee and project staff would like to express their sincere
gratitude to all of those who generously contributed their time and expertise to inform the development of this report.
To begin, we would like to thank the sponsors of this study for their
guidance. Support for the committee’s work was provided by the Administration for Children and Families, the Bezos Family Foundation, the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, the Foundation for Child Development, the Health
Resources and Services Administration, the Heising-Simons Foundation,
and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Many individuals volunteered significant time and effort to address and
educate the committee during our public sessions (see Appendix A) and our
interviews with parents. Their willingness to share their perspectives was
essential to the committee’s work. We express gratitude to those who provided support in identifying parents for the interviews and public session
in Irvine, California, including Sunnah Kim at the American Academy of
Pediatrics, Yolie Flores at The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, Sandra
Gutierrez and Debbie Ignacio at Abriendo Puertas/Opening Doors, and
Michael Duncan at Native Dad Networks. We are grateful to Lucy Rivero
for providing interpretation services during the public session in Irvine. We
also thank the many stakeholders who offered input and shared information and documentation with the committee over the course of the study,
including the Center for Law and Social Policy, the Center for the Study of
Social Policy, Futures Without Violence, the National Parenting Education
ix

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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

xACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Network, and ZERO TO THREE. In addition, we appreciate the generous
hospitality of the organizations and providers in Omaha, Nebraska, and
Washington, D.C., who opened their doors to provide us space to conduct
interviews with parents. We are also immensely grateful for the planning
assistance and logistical support for site visits provided to us by Lori Koker
at the Buffett Early Childhood Institute, University of Nebraska. Furthermore, we extend our appreciation to the many assistants who provided
scheduling, communication, and travel support for the committee members.
The committee also expresses its deep appreciation for the opportunity
to work with the dedicated members of the staff of the National Academies
of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on this important project. We are
thankful to the project staff: Morgan Ford, Heather Breiner, Sarah Tracey,
Kelsey Geiser, Stacey Smit, Anthony Janifer, and Katherine Gold. The committee is also thankful to Pamella Atayi, Faye Hillman, and Lisa Alston
for their assistance on this project. The committee gratefully acknowledges
Kimber Bogard and Bridget Kelly of the Board on Children, Youth, and
Families; Robert Hauser, executive director of the Division of Behavioral
and Social Sciences and Education; Mary Ellen O’Connell, deputy executive
director of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education;
and Clyde Behney, executive director of the Health and Medicine Division
for their leadership and the guidance they provided throughout this study.
The committee would like to thank staff of the Office of Reports and Communication of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
for their assistance with the preparation of this report, including Eugenia
Grohman, Viola Horek, Patricia L. Morison, Kirsten Sampson-Snyder,
Douglas Sprunger, and Yvonne Wise. We also wish to thank the staff at the
Research Center for their research assistance. In addition, we thank the staff
of Kentlands Travel for their assistance with the travel needs of this project.
The committee is grateful to Lauren Tobias of Maven Messaging &
Communications for her work as a consultant for this study. We greatly
appreciate Jessica F. Harding, Joanne Nicholson, Karen Bierman, Kyla
Liggett-Creel, Lisa A. Gennetian, Pamella Morris, and Tumaini Coker
for their valuable commissioned work. We thank Rona Briere and Alisa

­Decatur at Briere Associates, Inc., for the diligent editorial assistance they
provided in preparing this report.

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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

Reviewers

This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for
their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and
critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published
report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional
standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge.
The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect
the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following
individuals for their review of this report: Anthony Biglan, Education and
Training, Oregon Research Institute, Eugene; Deborah Daro, Hall Center
for Children, University of Chicago; Julia Mendez, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Bennett A. Shaywitz,
Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, Yale University; Susan J. Spieker, Family
and Child Nursing and Barnard Center for Infant Mental Health and Development, University of Washington; William H. Teale, Center for Literacy,
University of Illinois; Ross A. Thompson, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis; Richard Wasserman, Department of Pediatrics,
University of Vermont College of Medicine.
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the report’s conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report
before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Nancy E. Adler,
Departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics and Center for Health and Community, University of California, San Francisco, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn,
xi


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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

xiiREVIEWERS
Teachers College and College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. Appointed by the Academies, they were responsible for making
certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in
accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments
were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report
rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.

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Contents

SUMMARY1
1INTRODUCTION
Purpose of This Study, 17
What Is Parenting? 19
Study Context, 23
Study Approach, 29
Terminology and Study Parameters, 34
Guiding Principles, 35
Report Organization, 36

References, 37

15

2






PARENTING KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES, AND PRACTICES 45
Desired Outcomes for Children, 45
Parenting Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices, 47
Parenting within Family Systems, 79
Summary, 80
References, 81

3





FEDERAL POLICIES AND INVESTMENTS SUPPORTING
PARENTS AND CHILDREN IN THE UNITED STATES
Public Health Successes, 104
Federal Budget Supporting Parents and Children, 106
Federal Policies and Investments Supporting Parents and
Children, 107

xiii

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101


Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

xivCONTENTS



Summary, 119
References, 120

4 UNIVERSAL/PREVENTIVE AND WIDELY USED
INTERVENTIONS
125
Universal/Preventive Interventions, 125
Widely Used Interventions, 141
Use of Information and Communication Technologies to Support
Parenting, 172
Supporting Parenting: Income, Nutrition Assistance, Health Care,
and Housing Programs, 181
Parental and Family Leave Policies, 192
Summary, 199
References, 203
5TARGETED INTERVENTIONS SUPPORTING PARENTS
OF CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS, PARENTS FACING

SPECIAL ADVERSITIES, AND PARENTS INVOLVED WITH
CHILD WELFARE SERVICES
Parents of Children with Special Needs, 230
Parents Facing Special Adversities, 248
Families Involved with Child Welfare Services, 282
Summary, 290
References, 297
6 ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE PARENTING PROGRAMS
AND STRATEGIES FOR INCREASING PROGRAM
PARTICIPATION AND RETENTION
Elements of Effective Programs, 326
Additional Strategies for Increasing Program Participation and
Retention, 335
Summary, 341
References, 342
7 TOWARD A NATIONAL FRAMEWORK
Criteria to Consider in Developing a System for Parenting
Support, 352
Core Elements of a Framework, 357
Concluding Thoughts, 374
References, 375

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229

325

351



Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

xv

CONTENTS

8








CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
381
Scaling Effective Interventions, 381
Communicating Evidence-based Parenting Information, 386
Addressing Gaps in the Research-to-Practice/Practice-to-Research
Pipeline, 387
Strengthening the Evidence on Strategies for Supporting Parents
with Special Needs, 389
Strengthening the Evidence on Fathers, 389
Strengthening the Evidence for Diverse Populations, 391
References, 392

APPENDIXES

A Public Session Agendas
BClearinghouses Used to Identify Interventions with Evidence
of Effectiveness
C Table of Parenting Interventions
D Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

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395
401
413
499


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Boxes, Figures, and Tables

BOXES
1-1
1-2

A Mother’s Story, 16
Statement of Task, 20


3-1The Founding and Evolution of the Children’s Bureau: The First
Agency Focused Solely on Children and Families, 102
4-1
Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), 146
4-2
Parents as Teachers (PAT), 146
4-3
Durham Connects, 147
4-4Parenting in Older-Model Early Care and Education
Programs, 168
5-1

The Triple P-Positive Parenting Program, 240

6-1

A Father’s Story, 334

B-1Previous National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and
Practices (NREPP) Criteria for Rating Programs, 403
B-2Four Dimensions Used to Review Outcomes in the National
Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP), 404
B-3Basic Criteria for Inclusion in Blueprints Registry, 406
B-4Specific Criteria for Each CEBC Classification System
Category, 410
xvii

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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

xviii

BOXES, FIGURES, AND TABLES

FIGURES
1-1Human brain development: Rate of synapse formation by age, 24
1-2Living arrangements of children under age 18 in the United
States, 1960-2015, 27
3-1 Share of federal budget outlays spent on children (ages 0-18),
2014, 107
3-2 Share of federal expenditures (in billions) on children (ages 0-18)
by program type, 2014, 108
4-1 Illustrative prenatal and early childhood home visiting logic
model, 144
4-2 Hypothesized benefits of parents’ engagement in children’s early
education for children’s achievement and school success, 169
5-1 Linkage among family-centered practices, early childhood
intervention practices, and child outcomes, 232
5-1-1Schematic of the Triple P system of tiered levels of intervention
(in Box 5-1), 241
B-1 Diagram of how the final outcome rating is determined for the
National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices, 405
B-2 Scientific Rating Scale for the California Evidence-Based
Clearinghouse for Child Welfare, 409
TABLES
3-1 Federal Expenditures on Children by Program, 2014 (in billions
of dollars), 109

4-1 Number of Favorable Impacts of Home Visiting for Primary
Outcomes Compared with Total Number of Outcomes Reviewed
for Models with Evidence of Effectiveness, by Outcome
Domain, 149
4-2 Computer and Internet Use among U.S. Households, 2013, 174
C-1 Evidence-Based Interventions That Support Parenting, 414

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Summary

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and
the environment of the family—which includes all primary caregivers—are
at the foundation of children’s well-being and healthy development. From
birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in
their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never
be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child’s brain is
­rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created
and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children
build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their
health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of
parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can
enrich and give focus to parents’ lives; generate stress or calm; and create
any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger.
Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood that has provided a more nuanced understanding
of the critical periods in early childhood development and parenting. In

addition, while child poverty has increased in recent years, there have been
increases in funding for programs and services for families, such as early
childhood education, home visiting, and income support programs, which
have implications for the development of a framework for better supporting
parents of young children.
In addition, the demographic characteristics of the U.S. population are
changing rapidly. As of 2014, 25 percent of children ages 0-5 had at least
1

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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

2

PARENTING MATTERS

one immigrant parent, compared with just under 14 percent in 1990. Related in part to immigration, the racial and ethnic diversity of families has
increased over the past several decades, a trend that is anticipated to continue. For example, between 2000 and 2010, the percentage of Americans
identifying as black, Hispanic, Asian, or “other” increased from 15 percent
to 36 percent, and the percentage of children under age 10 of Hispanic
ethnicity (of any race) grew from about 19 percent to 25 percent.
There also is greater diversity in family structure as a result of increases
in divorce, cohabitation, new types of parental relationships (e.g., same-sex
parents), and involvement of grandparents and other relatives in the raising of young children. Between 1960 and 2015, the percentage of children
and youth under age 18 who lived with two married parents (biological,
nonbiological, or adoptive) decreased from approximately 85 percent to
65 percent. In 2014, 7 percent of children lived in households headed by
grandparents, compared with 3 percent in 1970.

Finally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting, some of which is not based
in evidence. All of the above changes have implications for how best to
support the parents and other caregivers of young children.
It is against this backdrop that in fall 2014 multiple federal agencies
and private foundations requested that the National Academies of Sciences,
Engineering, and Medicine form the Committee on Supporting Parents of
Young Children to assess the research on parenting and strategies for supporting parenting in the United States. The committee’s major tasks were
to identify parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with
positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive
and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective
with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge,
attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents’ use of
practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation
in effective programs and services. Based on this assessment, the committee
was asked to make recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders,
for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services
for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and
practice. The resulting report would serve as a roadmap for the future of
parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.
PARENTING KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES, AND PRACTICES
Research reviewed by the committee revealed that certain areas of
knowledge and parenting practices are associated with children’s favorable developmental outcomes, although there are some limitations to this
research.

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3

SUMMARY

In the area of parenting knowledge, the extant research suggests that
parental knowledge of child development is positively associated with
­quality parent-child interactions and the likelihood of parents’ engagement
in practices that promote their children’s healthy development. Research
also indicates that parents with knowledge of evidence-based parenting
practices, especially those related to promoting children’s physical health
and safety (e.g., injury prevention, how to sooth a crying infant), are more
likely than those without such knowledge to engage in those practices.
Parents’ attitudes about the roles of parents and others in the raising
of young children, as well as about specific practices (e.g., breastfeeding,
the role of parents in children’s education), contribute to some variation in
practices and in the uptake of services for families among individuals and
subpopulations. The committee concluded that empirical studies on parenting attitudes do not allow for the identification of core parenting attitudes
consistently associated with positive child outcomes. However, the available evidence points to a need for taking parents’ attitudes and beliefs into
consideration in the design and implementation of programs and services
to ensure that they are sensitive to parents’ needs and to extend their reach.
The committee identified a number of parenting practices associated
with positive child outcomes in the areas of physical health and safety,
emotional and behavioral competence, social competence, and cognitive
competence:
•
•
•
•
•


•

contingent responsiveness (“serve and return”)—adult behavior that
occurs immediately after a child’s behavior and that is related to the
child’s focus of attention, such as a parent smiling back at a child;
showing warmth and sensitivity;
routines and reduced household chaos;
shared book reading and talking to children;
practices that promote children’s health and safety—in particular
receipt of prenatal care, breastfeeding, vaccination, ensuring children’s adequate nutrition and physical activity, monitoring, and
household/vehicle safety; and
use of appropriate (less harsh) discipline.

Much of the research on parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices is correlational, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions about
­causation. In addition, most studies are focused on mothers, with a lack of
research on fathers and other caregivers (e.g., grandparents).
Although studies suggest some variation in parenting knowledge, atti­
tudes, and practices among racial/ethnic, cultural, and other subgroups of
parents, more attention is needed as to whether and how these differences
matter for child outcomes.

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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

4

PARENTING MATTERS


INTERVENTIONS TO SUPPORT PARENTS AND PARENTING
Scaling Effective Interventions
The committee identified a number of interventions that promote the
parenting practices described above. These include well-identified formal
sources of parenting support for many parents, such as well-child care,
center-based child care (Head Start and Early Head Start), and home visiting programs that are largely preventive in their approach. Other interventions are targeted to specific populations of parents, such as parents
of children with special needs (e.g., those with developmental disabilities)
and parents facing adversities, such as mental illness, substance abuse, and
intimate partner violence. Federal efforts also support parents through income assistance, nutrition assistance (e.g., the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children [WIC]), health care, and
housing programs. These programs aid large numbers of parents, primarily
those with low incomes, in ensuring their own and their children’s physical
health and safety.
Yet many families that could benefit from these interventions neither
seek out nor are referred to them. To better support parents and children,
then, improved referral mechanisms are needed. Millions of parents interact
with health care (e.g., well-child and mental and behavioral health care),
education (e.g., early care and education and formal prekindergarten to
grade 3), and other community services each year. Along with improvements in workforce preparation (see Recommendations 3 and 4 below),
better leveraging the services with which many parents already have ongoing connections as points of intervention and referral would help improve
the reach of effective strategies.
Recommendation 1: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Education, state and local agencies, and
community-based organizations responsible for the implementation of
services that reach large numbers of families (e.g., health care, early care
and education, community programs) should form a working group to
identify points in the delivery of these services at which evidence-based
strategies for supporting parents can be implemented and referral of
parents to needed resources can be enhanced. Based on its findings, the
working group should issue guidance to service delivery organizations
on increasing parents’ access to evidence-based interventions.
Research on how to bring effective parenting programs to scale is limited. Although a number of programs are effective in supporting parents,

their potential for helping large numbers of families often depends on fac-

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5

SUMMARY

tors specific to the families served and to the organizations and communities in which they will be implemented. Additional evidence is needed to
inform the creation of a system for efficiently disseminating evidence-based
programs and services to the field and for ensuring that communities learn
about them, are able to assess their fit with community needs, develop
needed adaptations, and monitor fidelity and progress toward targeted
outcomes. Findings from this research could be used in an ongoing way
to inform the integration of evidence-based interventions into widely used
service platforms.
Recommendation 2:1 The U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, the Institute of Education Sciences, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and private philanthropies should fund research focused on developing guidance for policy makers and program
administrators and managers on how to scale effective parenting programs as widely and rapidly as possible. This research should take into
account organization-, program-, and system-level factors, as well as
quality improvement. Supports for scaling efforts developed through
this research might include cost tools, measurement toolkits, and implementation guidelines.
Enhancing Workforce Competence in Delivering
Evidence-Based Parenting Interventions
A professional workforce with knowledge about and competencies for
implementing evidence-based interventions to support parents is essential

to the successful scale-up of effective approaches. Evidence-based parenting interventions often are not available as part of either routine services
for parents or services not designed specifically for parents but with the
potential to benefit many parents, such as treatments for mental illness and
substance abuse. One reason for this is that providers of these services often
lack knowledge and competencies in evidence-based parenting interventions. Graduate training for providers of children’s services and behavioral
health care (e.g., in schools of social work and nursing) currently includes
limited or no coursework on evidence-based parenting programs or their
core elements. A viable way to increase the availability of evidence-based
parenting interventions is to build on the commonality of specific and nonspecific elements across interventions.
1 This recommendation, along with Recommendations 4, 6, and 10 were modified following
the transmittal of the report to the study sponsors. In particular, the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) was inserted to replace the names of specific agencies within HHS
to allow HHS to decide the most appropriate agencies to carry out the recommendations.

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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

6

PARENTING MATTERS

Recommendation 3: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services should continue to promote the use of evidence-based parenting interventions. In so doing, it should support research designed
to further operationalize the common elements of effective parenting
interventions and to compare the benefits of interventions based on
the common elements of effective parenting programs with the specific
evidence-based programs from which the elements originated. These
efforts also should encompass (1) development of a common terminology for describing common elements and creation and testing of
corresponding training materials; (2) development of an open-source

curriculum, fidelity-checking strategies, and sustainability strategies for
use in educating health and human service professionals in the d
­ elivery
of evidence-based parenting interventions; and (3) creation of a variety of incentives and training programs to ensure knowledge of effective parenting interventions among professional groups working with
young children and their families.
Enhancing Workforce Knowledge and Competence in Parent Engagement
Parents’ engagement in young children’s learning is associated with improvements in children’s literacy, behavior, and socioemotional well-being.
Parent engagement is a process that can be facilitated by provider skills in
communication and joint decision making with diverse families about their
children’s education, but programs designed to prepare individuals to work
with young children do not always include evidence-informed strategies for
creating successful partnerships with families. Despite growing recognition
that partnerships with families contribute to the success of early childhood
programs and schools in preparing children for academic success, as well
as an emphasis on family engagement in statutes and policies, programs designed to prepare teachers and providers often do not include professional
development related to working with parents.
Recommendation 4: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education should convene a group of
experts in teaching and research and representatives of relevant practice
organizations and research associations to review and improve professional development for providers who work with families of young
children across sectors (e.g., education, child welfare, health). Professional development should be evaluated as to whether its core elements
include best practices in engagement of and joint decision making
with parents, across diverse family structures with other parental care­
givers, as well as evidence-informed programs that support parents.
The expert group should identify appropriate courses to address issues

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