24 x 36 poster template

1

• Irish Early Childhood Interventions
• Introducing the Preparing for Life Programme
• Orla Doyle, Ph.D. PFL Evaluation Team
• UCD Geary Institute
• University College Dublin, Ireland

• A series of early childhood interventions have
  recently been initiated in Ireland with the aim
  of changing the life trajectories of at risk
  children. The first of these interventions, the
  Preparing for Life (PFL) programme, is a
  five-year school readiness programme involving
  the antenatal recruitment of a cohort of 200
  pregnant women residing in designated
  disadvantaged areas of North Dublin, Ireland. The
  aim of this programme is to work with families
  from pregnancy until age 5 to help support the
  healthy development of the child.
• All programme families receive facilitated access
  to preschool, public health information, and the
  services of a support worker. One hundred
  families are randomly allocated to a high
  treatment group and participate in a home
  visiting mentoring programme and group parent
  training. Additionally, treatment groups are
  matched to a comparison community to facilitate
  comparisons with a non-intervention group.
• The effectiveness of the PFL programme is being
  evaluated using an experimental longitudinal
  design that collects data from both children and
  parents during pregnancy until the child is 5
  years old. Figure 2 below illustrates the
  longitudinal experimental design of this
  evaluation.

The intergenerational transmission of
socioeconomic inequalities in childrens health,
and cognitive, behavioural and emotional
development emerge early, and can persist
throughout life. Limited evidence, primarily from
the US, suggests that targeted, early
intervention programmes aimed at disadvantaged
children and their families are an effective
means of reducing these inequalities (Karoly et
al., 2005), as providing resources to
disadvantaged children and their families can
partially compensate for risk factors that
compromise the most critical stages of early
development. As the majority of this evidence is
based on small-scale US experimental studies, we
cannot assume that their effectiveness will be
replicated in a European setting given the vast
differences in social welfare systems and
cultural contexts. The Preparing for Life (PFL)
programme allows us to provide the first rigorous
evaluation of an early childhood programme in
Ireland.

• The PFL sample comprises the following groups
• Low Treatment (n 100)
• High Treatment (n 100)
• Matched Community Comparison Group (n 100)
• Recruitment began in February, 2008 and is
  expected to be complete by the close of 2009.

ABSTRACT
PREPARING FOR LIFE
PFL PARTICIPANTS

• Informant The mother is the primary informant,
  however, data are also collected from fathers,
  the child, and other independent data sources
  (e.g., maternity hospital records)
• Data Collection
• Time Points Pre-intervention (baseline), 6mths,
  12mths,18mths, 24mths, 3yrs, 4yrs, 5yrs
• The baseline and 6 month survey are currently
  live. The 12 month survey will go live in April,
  2009. First complete wave of data expected
  January, 2010.

DATA COLLECTION

• Early childhood interventions are programmes that
  attempt to improve child health and development
  from conception to six years of age with the
  expectation that these improvements will have
  long-term benefits for child development and
  well-being (Wise et al., 2005).
• US based longitudinal studies find that the
  benefits associated with investing early in a
  childs life outweigh the costs. Some of these
  benefits include
• - Personal Benefits Cognitive development,
  behaviour and social competence, education,
• earnings
• - Social Benefits Reduced delinquency and
  crime
• - Government Savings Higher tax revenues,
  reduced social welfare spending
• These interventions have been found to generate a
  return to society ranging from 1.80 to 17.00
  for every dollar spent (Karoly et al., 1998).
• By investing early, the benefits are enjoyed for
  longer, which in turn increases the return to
  investment.

EARLY INTERVENTION EARLY INVESTMENT
Figure 2 PFL EVALUATION DESIGN

• Examples of Child Data
• physical health and motor skills - social
  and emotional development - behavioural
  development - learning and
  literacy - language
  development

• Examples of Parent Data
• pregnancy behaviours -
  physical and psychological health - cognitive
  ability -
  personality -
  parenting skills

• A representative survey assessing levels of
  school readiness of children aged 4-5 years
  attending the local primary schools in the PFL
  catchment area was carried out in
  October/November, 2008. School Readiness was
  assessed using the Early Development Instrument
  (EDI Janus Offord, 2001). Teacher-rated
  results are presented in Figure 3.
• Figure 3 Mean Levels of School Readiness in the
  PFL Catchment Area
• Compared to a Normative Canadian Sample

CURRENT LEVEL OF SCHOOL READINESS

• The PFL programme aims to improve the overall
  levels of school readiness. Research in child
  development and early education has noted that
  school readiness is a multi-dimensional concept
  which reflects the holistic nature of childrens
  development and takes account of a host of
  factors in their wider environment. A complete
  definition of school readiness includes the
  following domains (Child Trends, 2001 National
  Education Goals Panel, 1995)
• - Physical well-being and motor development
  (health status, disabilities, motor skills)
• - Social and emotional development (takes
  turns, displays empathy, expresses feelings)
• - Approaches to learning (inclination to use
  skills, knowledge and capacities)
• - Language development and emerging literacy
  (ability to listen, speak, understand)
• - Cognition and general knowledge (overall
  general knowledge)
• Furthermore, poor school readiness has been
  associated with later difficulties such as
• - Poor peer relationships (Kupersmidt et al.,
  1990)
• - Poor academic achievement (Raver, 2003)
• - Higher levels of unemployment (Ross and
  Shillington, 1990)
• - Higher levels of teenage pregnancy
  (Brooks-Gunn, 2003)
• - Higher levels of criminal activity
  (Brooks-Gunn, 2003)
• - Poor psychological well-being (Brooks-Gunn,
  2003)

SCHOOL READINESS
This research is funded by the Preparing for Life
programme.