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Online Model Implementation TrainingModule 1 Course Supplement

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Technical Requirements for Online Courses

Notes:

Operating systems:

PC

> Windows Vista, 2000, XP, or Windows 7

> Internet Explorer 7.0+, or Firefox 3.0+

> Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.0+

> Flash Player 10 or later

> A general audio output

MAC

> Macintosh OS X (10.5+)

> Mozilla Firefox 3.0+, or Safari 4.0+

> Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.0+

> Flash player 10 or later

> A general audio output

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Online Model Implementation Training

Notes:

Instructions for Using the Discussion Forum

Step 1 – Minimize the class window or click on the screen outside of the class window to return to the portal.

Step 2 – Click on the “Discussion” link to view the forum.

Step 3 – Note that the forum is in a Threaded View.

Step 4 – Locate the appropriate module of the course and click on the + to expand then, choose the sub-heading or post to respond to by clicking on the link. The directions for the post will appear at the bottom of the page.

Step 5 – Click on the Reply button at the top of the forum to post a response.

An Open Forum category is available for general thoughts and questions you would like to share with other students.

To maintain a manageable view, please avoid creating a “New Post”.

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Parents as Teachers Model Implementation Guide Introduction | 7

Introduction to Parents as Teachers Model ImplementationEach individual attending Model Implementation Training is affiliated with an organization that has chosen to replicate the Parents as Teachers model. For replication to be successful, it must occur in an appropriate context (Daro, 2009).

Notes:

This context has already been developed by each organization and approved by Parents as Teachers through the affiliate planning process. Further, effective programs – and thus, effective replication – rely on several key factors:

> “Solid internal consistency that links specific program elements to specific outcomes,

> Well-trained and competent staff,

> High-quality supervision that includes observation of the provider and participant,

> Solid organizational capacity,

> Linkages to other community resources and supports, and

> Consistent implementation of program components” (Daro, 2006, p. 11).

This Model Implementation Guide includes detailed guidance on each of these important factors and how they connect to your important role as a parent educator, supervisor, or program administrator.

There are two vital aspects to model fidelity: structural and process.

> Structural fidelity involves adherence to the essential building blocks of Parents as Teachers and the way in which they have been put together to form a cohesive package of services (for example, the core model components of personal visits, group connections, screening, and resource network).

> Process fidelity involves the interpersonal elements critical to successful services (for example, the relationship the parent educator forms with each family). “From the view of families, home visitors are the program” (Gomby, 2005). Thus, consistency in delivery of the home visit across visits and across parent educators, as well as delivering the services and curriculum as intended (Gomby, 2005) is crucial for fidelity at the parent educator level.

As important as consistent replication of Parents as Teachers and model fidelity are to

achieving positive outcomes for children and families, Parents as Teachers does not operate in isolation (Family Strengthening Policy Center, 2007). Rather, Parents as Teachers is a valuable part of early childhood systems in its local community. “… Home visiting programs must have strong connections to a full system of family strengthening support, including other child and youth services in the community” (FSPC, 2007). Parent educators must actively help families identify and access additional services that address their various needs. Thus, resource network is an integral and integrated component of the Parents as Teachers model.

As organizations move forward with replication of Parents as Teachers at the local level, they are supported by a network of state- and nationally based entities who together offer advocacy, technical assistance, and evaluation resources to help ensure that each Parents as Teachers affiliate has a significant impact on the families in its community.

“Model fidelity, that is, providing services the way the model intends, is crucial for achieving positive results” (National Resource Center for CBCAP, 2007).

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Parents as Teachers Model Implementation Guide Introduction | 8

Evidence-based practice

A final critical factor in developing and replicating a quality early childhood home visiting program is the application of evidence-based practices. Evidence-based practice essentially involves using the best available research in combination with one’s professional expertise while fully considering a family’s culture, values, and characteristics (APA Presidential Task Force, 2006).

Parents as Teachers parent educators work with families through four interrelated service delivery components: personal visits, group connections, screening, and resource network. All enrolled families receive this four-component model. In addition, the delivery of the four components is informed and guided by family-centered assessment and goal setting. It is important as well to recognize that home visiting services are part of a continuum of supports for families of young children and that strong communities provide multiple coordinated and well-integrated avenues for the optimal development of young children.

By choosing Parents as Teachers, organizations are already taking the first step with evidence-based practice. The Parents as Teachers Foundational Curriculum, training, and model are all based on respected research findings and evidence of effective practice. At the affiliate and parent educator levels, evidence-based practice is maintained by implementing the Parents as Teachers model with consistency while applying the curriculum and visit plans, focus of group connections, and approaches to screening in ways that account for the population(s) served and individual families’ particular circumstances.

Strengthening FamiliesTM Protective Factors

Parents as Teachers services help to build the five protective factors that are the foundation of the Strengthening Families approach (“Protective Factors,” 2008). Protective factors are attributes that, when present in families and communities, serve as buffers to prevent or reduce risk to families and children.

The protective factors are: > Parental resilience > Social connections > Knowledge of parenting and child development > Concrete supports in times of need > Social and emotional competence of children

Notes:

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Parents as Teachers Model Implementation Guide Introduction | 9

Resources to guide high-quality replication

Parents as Teachers offers several resources that provide standards and comprehensive guidance for high-quality replication of the Parents as Teachers model and for ongoing monitoring of fidelity. Together, the following key items create a portfolio of resources to develop and support high-quality programming.

The key resources include:

> Essential requirements – Establish the programmatic elements necessary for model replication.

> Quality assurance guidelines – Provide supporting information on how to implement the essential requirements.

> Quality standards – Provide detailed, comprehensive standards for quality implementation of the Parents as Teachers model that include the essential requirements along with additional expectations for quality.

> Model Implementation Guide – Expands upon the quality assurance guidelines and provides additional implementation strategies and evidence-based practices.

> Readiness reflection – Provides an opportunity for reflection about organizational capacity, staffing, and community needs and relationships prior to new affiliates completing their affiliate plans.

> Affiliate plan – Helps organizations design their Parents as Teachers affiliate and demonstrate how they will fulfill the essential requirements, using a logic model format.

Tools for ongoing monitoring of fidelity > Affiliate quality assurance blueprint – Describes necessary quality assurance activities, along with who completes the activities and at what frequency. The blueprint functions as a tracking tool, helping the supervisor track implementation and model fidelity.

> Affiliate Performance Report (APR) – Provides a tool for reporting on and understanding implementation of the essential requirements across a program year, along with descriptive information about affiliates’ design and services.

> Affiliate quality assessment – Provides a tool for use by affiliates when they undergo a comprehensive assessment every fourth year, assessing themselves on their fulfillment of the quality standards.

Notes:

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Parents as Teachers Model Implementation Guide Introduction | 10

Essential requirements

The essential requirements are highlighted in blue and noted with a star throughout this guide and are also provided in the Additional Information, Resources, and Forms section as a requirements checklist.

The essential requirements are necessary for an organization to become and remain a Parents as Teachers affiliate with approval to implement the Parents as Teachers model. Implementation and service delivery data that address the essential requirements are reported at the end of each program year on the Affiliate Performance Report (APR). New affiliates’ intentions to comply with these requirements are initially demonstrated through the affiliate plan.

Quality Assurance Guidelines

The Quality Assurance Guidelines (QA Guidelines) elaborate on the essential requirements, providing information on how to implement these requirements. The QA Guidelines are provided to prospective affiliates in order to help them effectively plan their services, operations, and management. Adherence to the QA Guidelines helps to ensure successful replication, model fidelity, and application of evidence-based practice.

Quality standards

The 2012 edition standards present a current and comprehensive picture of quality implementation of the Parents as Teachers model. They are based on early childhood home visiting research and literature, as well as field experience with the evidence-based Parents as Teachers model. The standards include the Parents as Teachers essential requirements, along with additional expectations for quality.

Model implementation guide

The Model Implementation Guide incorporates the QA Guidelines while providing additional implementation strategies and evidence-based practices that help each organization fully understand and bring to life a quality Parents as Teachers affiliate. In order to become familiar with the expectations for replication of the model, new parent educators will need to attend both the Foundational and Model Implementation Trainings and become knowledgable about all aspects of the Model Implementation Guide. Supervisors will attend, at a minimum, the Model Implementation Training.

Please note that while the Model Implementation Guide is the property of the individual certified parent educator or supervisor, it should be used only in conjunction with employment at a Parents as Teachers affiliate in good standing.

Notes:

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Parents as Teachers Model Implementation Guide Introduction | 11

Core competencies

Because the relationship between the parent educator and the family is at the center of Parents as Teachers and outcomes are significantly impacted by the skill of the parent educator and the strength of the parent educator-family relationship, both structural and process elements of fidelity must be in place.

Central to process fidelity are the core competencies. Parent educator core competencies include knowledge, skills, and practices that inform and impact the relationship parent educators have with families. Parent educators work to strengthen and support parents1 so that children are healthy, safe, and ready to learn. To do this well, they develop core competency in five key areas. The Foundational Training provides the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to work effectively with families. Parent educators develop their attitudes, knowledge, and skill further as they gain experience, obtain additional professional development, and receive reflective supervision.

The structural fidelity resources can be seen as steps, with the core competencies developing alongside throughout the parent educator’s career. Together with high-quality supervision, these key resources establish a comprehensive blueprint for quality implementation of Parents as Teachers and help to ensure that child and family outcomes are achieved.

1 The use of the word parent(s) is meant to have universal meaning, as an adult who cares for a child – biological parent, foster parent, grandparent, and so on. For more information, see the Essential Requirements in the Additional Information, Resources, and Forms Section.

Quality standards

Model Implementation Guide

Quality Assurance Guidelines

Essential Requirements

Parenteducatorcore competencies

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Parents as Teachers Model Implementation Guide Introduction | 12

April 2011. Developed by Parents as Teachers.

PARENTS AS TEACHERS LOGIC MODELE

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Parent educators share research-based information and utilize evidence-based practices by partnering, facilitating, and reflecting with families.Parent educators use the Parents as Teachers Foundational Curriculum in culturally sensitive ways to deliver services that emphasize:Parent-Child Interaction

> Parenting behaviors > Child development > Parent-child activities

Development-Centered Parenting > Link between child development and parenting > Developmental topics (attachment, discipline, health, nutrition, safety, sleep, transitions/routines, and healthy births)

Family Well-Being > Family strengths, capabilities, and skills > Protective factors based on the Strengthening Families™ approach

> Resourcing

ApproachE

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> The early years of a child’s life are critical for optimal development and provide the foundation for success in school and in life.

> Parents are their children’s first and most influential teachers.

> Established and emerging research is the foundation of our curriculua, training, materials and services.

> All young children and their families deserve the same opportunities to succeed, regardless of any demographic, geographic, or economic considerations.

> An understanding and appreciation of the history and traditions of diverse cultures is essential in serving families.

Core Values Short-Term Outcomes

Increase in healthy pregnancies and improved birth outcomes (when services are delivered prenatally)Increase in parents’ knowledge of their child’s emerging development and age-appropriate child development

> Parents are knowledgeable about their child’s current and emerging language, intellectual, social-emotional, and motor development

> Parents recognize their child’s developmental strengths and possible delays

> Parents are familiar with key messages about healthy births, attachment, discipline, health, nutrition, safety, sleep, and transitions/routines

Improved parenting capacity, parenting practices, and parent- child relationships

> Parents understand that a child’s development influences parenting responses

> Parents display more literacy and language promotingbehaviors > Parents demonstrate positive parenting skills, including nurturing and responsive parenting behaviors and positive discipline techniques

> Parents show increased frequency, duration, and quality of parent-child interactions

Early detection of developmental delays and health issues > Children will have increased identification and referral to services for possible delays and vision/hearing/health issues

Improved family health and functioning > Improved quality of home environment > Families link with other families and build social connections > Parents are more resilient and less stressed > Parents are empowered to identify and utilize resources and achieve family and child goals

> Families are connected to concrete support in times of need

> Human Ecology and Family Systems > Developmental Parenting > Attribution Theory > Empowerment and Self-Efficacy

Theoretical Framework

> Community needs and relationships > Organizational capacity > Well-trained and competent staff

Community Context

> Readiness Reflection > Quality Assurance Guidelines > Essential Requirements > Model Implementation Training and Guide

Fidelity and Quality Assurance

> Personal Visits > Group Connections > Screening > Resource Network

Model Components

Initial training and ongoing professional development build parent educators’ core competencies in the following areas:

> Family Support and Parenting Education > Child and Family Development > Human Diversity Within Family Systems > Health, Safety, and Nutrition > Relationships Between Families and Communities

Training and Professional Development

Strong communities, thriving families, and children who are healthy, safe, and ready to learn

Long-Term Outcomes

Inputs Activities Outcomes

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Improved child health and developmentPrevention of child abuse and neglectIncreased school readinessIncreased parent involvement in children’s care and education

Intermediate Outcomes

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Parents as Teachers Model Implementation Guide Introduction | 13

What is a logic model?

This logic model provides a simplified, visual description of the Parents as Teachers’ theory of change and provides a general picture of how the evidence-based Parents as Teachers model is intended to work to achieve desired outcomes.

The logic model represents a sequence of events. It flows from left to right and shows how change occurs over time. Reading the logic model is similar to reading a series of “If…then” statements.

Parents as Teachers consists of four dynamic and interrelated components, however additional strategies or model enhancements may be appropriate to best address families’ needs at the local level. For example, implementation may be modified to be culturally responsive, directed to special populations, or offered in conjunction with other early childhood programs as determined by community need.

How can the logic model be used?

The logic model provides a conceptual framework that can be used in program planning, training and professional development, allocation of personnel and resources, and evaluation. By demonstrating that activities are not ends unto themselves,

parent educators can be increasingly intentional as they work with families to create change and achieve the goals of Parents as Teachers.

Parents as Teachers goals

The goal of Parents as Teachers are woven throughout the short-term, intermediate, and long-term outcomes. The four goals are:

> Increase parent knowledge of early childhood development and improve parenting practices.

> Provide early detection of developmental delays and health issues.

> Prevent child abuse and neglect.

> Increase children’s school readiness and school success.

Notes: