Evaluating the Incredible Years School Readiness Parenting Programme

1
Evaluating the Incredible Years School Readiness
Parenting Programme
Kirstie Cooper
2
The IY School ReadinessProgramme

• Address risk factors associated with childrens
  lack of readiness and poor home-school
  connections
• 4 sessions, 2 hours per week
• Universal, delivered to parents through schools
• Aims 1. Improve childrens school readiness
• 2. Prevent conduct problems
• 3. Prevent academic underachievement
• 4. Enhance home-school links

3
Part 1

• Child-directed play Strengthening childrens
• social, emotional, and cognitive skills
• Emotion coaching to build emotional expression
• ???
• Building childrens self-esteem and creativity
• ???
• Teaching children to problem-solve
• ???
• Building childrens language skills

4
Part 2

• Encouraging social, emotional, academic and
• problem solving skills through interactive
  reading
• Building childrens self-esteem and
  self-confidence
• in their reading ability
• ???
• Having fun with books
• ???
• Letting the child be the storyteller
• ???
• Using the Reading With CARE building blocks

5
Reading with CARE building blocks

• Commenting and describing
• Asking open-ended questions
• Responding with encouragement
• Expanding on what the child says

6
The Evaluation

• To establish
• A battery of effective measures to assess
  childrens school readiness
• The effectiveness of the new Programme in
  improving childrens school readiness
• Any difficulties or barriers in implementing the
  programme

7
Recruitment

• 10 schools in North Wales
• Schools allocated to Intervention and
  waiting-list Control on a first come first
  serve basis
• Two staff at each school received training
• Teachers recruited groups of up to 12 parents
  with children aged 3-5 years
• Intervention 37 Control 16

8
Group delivery data collection

• Groups run during school time (AM/PM)
• 2 hours per week for 4 weeks
• Weekly supervision session with Prof. Hutchings
• Three home visits to families (1 hour each)
• Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires,
  direct observation, focus group

9
Demographics

• Personal Data and Health Questionnaire
• (PDHQ Hutchings, 1996)

Mean
Child age 46 months
Primary caregiver age 33 years
Primary caregivers age when first child born 25 years
Primary caregivers age leaving school 17 years
10
Demographics

Child gender 52 boys
Caregiver gender 98 females
Biological parent 100
Married / living together 81
Very low income 36
State benefits 25
11
Child Behaviour

• Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
• (SDQ Goodman, 1997)
• Parent report questionnaire
• 5 scales emotional symptoms, conduct problems,
  hyperactivity/inattention, peer relationship
  problems, and prosocial behaviour
• Scores for each scale, total difficulties and
  impact

12
SDQ Total impact
13
Child Behaviour

• Eyberg Child Behaviour Inventory
• (ECBI Eyberg Ross, 1978 Eyberg, 1980)
• 36-item parent report measure
• 7-point Intensity, measuring frequency of
  behaviours
• Yes-No Problem, identifies whether parent
  perceives the behaviour to be a problem.

14
ECBI Total problems
15
Play and Reading Observation Tool (PAROT)

• Direct Observation 30 minutes
• Part 1 Child-directed play
• 15 minutes of observing the unstructured play
  between the primary caregiver and child.
• Part 2 Interactive Reading
• 15 minutes of observing the primary caregiver
  and child reading together.
• One of three bilingual books used at each time
  point

16
PAROT - play Parent emotion coaching
17
PAROT - play Parent labelled praise
18
PAROT play Child positive behaviours
19
PAROT play Parent critical statements
20
PAROT reading Parent open-ended questions
21
Home-School Relationship Qualitative/Quantitative
Data

• Focus group
• e.g. What effect do you feel this programme has
  had on the relationship between the parents and
  your school?
• Group Leader Evaluation / Parent Evaluation
• Self-report questionnaire, rate on 5/6point
  Likert scale
• Parent Semi-structured Interview
• e.g. Has the programme had an effect on the
  relationship between you as a parent and the
  school?

22
Attendance Feedback

• Mean number of sessions attended 3
• 50 of parents attended all 4 sessions
• 90 of parents attended at least 2 sessions
• How likely are you to run the programme again at
  your school in the future? Very
  likely 4 Likely 3

23
Costs / Time

• Supply cover for teacher (80 - 300 pw)
• Refreshments etc. (4 per week)
• Room preparation time 15/30/60 mins
• Session preparation time 30/60/90 mins
• Group time 2 hrs, supervision 2 hrs
• Catch-up sessions 0/30/60 mins
• Telephone calls 20/30 mins

24
Diolch am wrandoThanks for listening
psp880_at_bangor.ac.uk