KU researchers show value of national Early Head Start Program

LAWRENCE--The federal Early Head Start Program is not just helping children -- it's helping their parents, too, according to a national study that included researchers from the University of Kansas.

Researchers found that children in the federal program not only do better in cognitive and language development but also in getting along with others, paying attention and behaving appropriately, paving the way for school success, one of the program's primary goals.

Early Head Start parents become more involved with their children. They read to their children more, use more positive approaches to discipline and are more safety conscious. They also are more likely to go into training or education programs and get stable jobs.

The KU researchers witnessed these benefits through the Early Head Start Program they administered at the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan.

Their research was part of a seven-year national evaluation of the newest component of Head Start that followed 3,000 children and families from the first group, which enrolled in Early Head Start in 1995-96. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently released the evaluation.

Project EAGLE, the comprehensive child development and family support program affiliated with KU Medical Center, was one of 17 national Early Head Start research sites that serve low-income children from birth to age 3 and their families.

"When we observed families over three years, we saw major improvements in the ways parents responded to their children," said Judy Carta, KU senior scientist. "Children learn so much when parents understand how important it is to simply talk and play with them."

Carta and her team, associate scientist Jean Ann Summers and research professor Jane Atwater, found that the outcomes of Project EAGLE's wide range of supports for 200 low-income Wyandotte County children and their families were very encouraging.

"Several of the families faced many difficulties," Carta said. "Many were single, had not finished high school, had problems with depression, illegal drugs and domestic violence, and yet were able to overcome these challenges and become good parents."

According to Carta, the families who were most actively involved in the Early Head Start programs achieved the greatest benefits in parenting and child development.

Director Martha Staker says Project EAGLE is successful because the program's skilled staff members help parents understand their children's development and their role in preparing their children for future success.

"During weekly home visits, staff meet with families for 90 minutes, engaging parents and their children in activities and checking on the family's progress in reaching their goals," Staker said.

Project EAGLE helps family members access transportation, continuing education, employment opportunities, and health and dental care.

"We believe that you must help the whole family succeed for the child to succeed," Staker said.

The Wyandotte County program is funded by the U.S. Head Start Bureau, the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services and the Unified Government of Wyandotte County-Kansas City, Kan. The program serves more than 200 pregnant women, infants and toddlers and their families each year and has a waiting list of more than 100 families.

Early Head Start parent Leslie Harris said that even though she had raised three older children, Project EAGLE taught her plenty about parenting her youngest son, Emanuel. "I think of Project EAGLE as a hand up in understanding that we are our children's first teachers, and a hand out to improve ourselves," she said.

Harris is employed; of the participating families, 61 percent had at least one employed family member.

Nationally, Early Head Start expanded from 68 to 664 programs serving some 55,000 children nationally in six years against the backdrop of welfare reform that no longer exempted from work requirements mothers with dependent children.

The evaluation team from KU's Juniper Gardens Children's Project will continue to follow the Kansas City, Kan., children and families as the children enter kindergarten as part of a smaller national study to determine if and how Early Head Start affects future success.

The Juniper Garden's Children's Project is a community-based educational research program in an impoverished Kansas City, Kan., community that helps schools and families devise solutions to specific problems in the education and treatment of their children in teaching, parenting and health care.

Both Project EAGLE, which is part of the KU Medical Center's Institute for Child Development, and the Juniper Garden's Children's Project are affiliated with the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies at KU.

The institute's 12 centers serve rural and urban Kansans through research-based solutions to the problems of development, disabilities and aging.