Review

Relationships with Parents and Families: The curriculum provides general guidance on building relationships with families. The "User's Guide" includes a brief section called "How Do I Build a Trusting Relationship?" with some general tips for building a trusting relationship with families (e.g., "keep their confidences," "respect their culture and values"). The "User's Guide" states, "To fulfill your role, you must first be able to establish warm, supportive, and empowering relationships with families whose culture, beliefs, values, and priorities may not be the same as your own. Establishing a good relationship with each family is key to your effectiveness." However, the curriculum does not offer specific guidance for supporting a relationship-building process between home visitors and families that is integrated throughout the curriculum materials. 

Responsive Interactions with Parents and Families: The "User's Guide" briefly describes the importance of responding to a family's concerns during a home visit. It provides some general tips and reflection questions to promote responsive interactions with families (e.g., "Inquire about any immediate needs or concerns," "Address the family's concern first," "Did I attend to what the family was telling me with their words and non-verbal cues?"). In addition, the "Detailed Information Pages" provide open-ended questions home visitors can use with the family to start conversations. However, there is little room in the "Detailed Information Pages" for home visitors to actively respond to families' unique needs, and the home visit planning process does not involve families. Additionally, little consideration is given to how home visitors engage in responsive interactions with diverse families. 

Peer Support: Partners for a Healthy Baby includes several parent handouts and "Detailed Information Pages" that discuss the importance of social support for families (e.g., "Circle of Support for My Baby and Me"). However, no explicit guidance is provided on how home visitors can gather families together for group socializations.

Relationships with Parents and Families: Baby TALK offers specific guidance and a process for how to build positive relationships with families. Guidance is integrated throughout the curriculum materials. For example, the Encounter Protocol provides a process for each encounter with the family that promotes respectful, collaborative relationships. In preparing for the home visit, the Encounter Protocol prompts the home visitor to "prepare with an open mind" and "recognize what I bring to the interaction." It also provides tips for respectful communication (e.g., "avoid judgment," "ask opinion"), open-ended questions, and observation prompts to learn about the family' strengths and needs. Further, each of the monthly activities from birth through 36 months provide open-ended questions and prompts that elicit the parent's perspective on their child's development. They also promote home visitor-parent interactions that are built on trust and respect toward parents as the agent of change in promoting their child's development (e.g., "How might you ask questions that will help him figure out …").

Responsive Interactions with Parents and Families: The curriculum provides general principles and some strategies on how to engage in responsive interactions with parents. It recommends meeting the family where they are, using active listening, and eliciting information about family needs to provide individualized services. For example, there is a "Preparation" section in all Encounter Protocols that reminds home visitors, "It is crucial to have the courage to meet every family without preconceptions or prepared programs, to come open-minded and ready to listen, not knowing in advance what form our intervention may take." In another section, "Affiliation," the Encounter Protocol discusses how to effectively and authentically communicate with families using OPERA listening. Each Encounter Protocol ends with reflective questions (Reflection-On-Action) to promote responsiveness to the family's needs when planning future visits (e.g., "Did I hear or understand a concern from the family that I can follow up on?"). While the curriculum provides general direction on responsive interactions with families, it lacks more specific guidance embedded in the materials for responsive interaction with culturally and linguistically diverse families.

Peer Support: Baby TALK provides specific guidance on how to bring families together to facilitate peer support. The Guideline for Group Preparation resource provides reflective prompts to help the home visitor plan group activities for families. Factors to consider include materials, information from the curriculum that will be shared with the family, things to observe during the group activity, and developmental behaviors to support. The Group Encounter Documentation provides the home visitor with a tool for recording the interactions (e.g., parent-to-child, parent-to-parent, and child-to-child) that took place within the group activity, any concerns about families, family support systems, and reflections on the activity.

Relationships with Parents and Families: The curriculum provides specific guidance with a variety of strategies for home visitors to build positive relationships with families. For example, in each of the "Step-Up Plans," the home visitor is offered "prompts or questions to understand the family's perspective and practice of the topic." These include open-ended prompts and questions for home visitors to get to know families and build relationships with them (e.g., "Explore the parents' own approaches to learning. Consider goal-setting in this area"). Many resources also support parent educators in building trusting relationships with families. For example, in the "Toolkit," various reminders and prompts are offered to parent educators as they get to know families and begin to explore setting goals (e.g., "Partner with parents to discover their interests, concerns, and issues").

Responsive Interactions with Parents and Families: The curriculum uses a strengths-based, responsive approach for parent educators to engage with diverse families. The approach is embedded throughout the curriculum materials. "Your Role as a Parent Educator," a section in all "Parent Educator Resources," includes suggestions for supporting families where they are, encouraging and empowering families, and pointing out positive features of their parenting. For example, "Parenting Behaviors: Growing and Changing" states, "Parents come to parenting with many strengths, experiences, and feelings… Support parents by noticing (and encourage parents to verbalize their own) parenting strengths, values, and resources." In addition, each home visit begins with "Connect, Reflect, and Agree." It provides time for home visitors and families to get to know one another, reflect on what has been happening with the child, and agree on what will happen during the visit. In each of the "Step-Up Plans," there are open-ended questions and other prompts to understand the family's perspective and current practices on individual topics. 

Peer Support: The curriculum provides general guidance on bringing families together to facilitate peer support. Some resources describe the importance of peer support (e.g., "Families and Communities"). The curriculum also includes a few specific scenarios when a home visitor might bring families together (e.g., kindergarten transition). However, while Parents as Teachers Foundational Curriculum provides a series of resources called "Group Connections" on facilitating peer support, these are not included in the preschool curriculum and there is no description of a specific process to support family socializations.

Relationships with Parents and Families: Parents as Teachers offers specific guidance, integrated throughout the curriculum materials, on how to build positive relationships with families. For example, "The Parent Educator's Role in the Personal Visit" provides specific strategies for how home visitors can build and sustain positive relationships with families. It describes three roles for home visitors: partners, facilitators, and reflectors. "When utilizing these first two roles, parent educators create time, space, and a safe atmosphere in which families are able to wonder and consider. As reflectors, parent educators use evidence-based practices to prompt reflections and generate awareness." In addition, the curriculum provides a variety of materials for both home visitors and families on how to support the home visitor-family relationship (e.g., "Welcome to Parents as Teachers," "The Strengthening Families Approach").

Responsive Interactions with Parents and Families: The curriculum provides specific guidance on how to engage in responsive interactions with diverse families. "Facilitating," a section of "The Parent Educator's Role in the Personal Visit," describes strategies for supporting responsive interactions with families (e.g., "Observing, listening and learning," "Gaining parents' perspectives," "Responsiveness and flexibility"). In addition, each home visit begins with "Connect, Reflect, and Agree," which provides time for home visitors and families to spend time getting to know one another, reflecting on what has been happening with the child, and agree on what will happen during the visit.

Peer Support: The curriculum offers specific guidance for how to bring families together to facilitate peer support through "Group Connections," a series of resources on group socializations. "Group Connections" provides a planning guide for group socializations, as well as suggestions for partnering with families to plan events.

Relationships with Parents and Families: The curriculum offers specific guidance for building positive relationships with families that is integrated throughout the curriculum materials and structure of home visits. Each home visit starts with "Making Connections," a dedicated time for home visitors and families to talk through what the family is experiencing, as well as to recognize the efforts of families. The "Conversation Guides" provide home visitors with conversation scripts that could support home visitors' relationships with families (e.g., "This is a partnership, so I will be listening closely to what is going on with you and your child and where you want to go next in the curriculum."). The materials offer a strengths-based approach for home visitors to use with families (e.g., a focus on "accentuating the positives"). Moreover, "Home Time," the last part of home visits, is a time for home visitors to check in with families about using concepts and activities during the week.

Responsive Interactions with Parents and Families: The curriculum provides some information for home visitors on how to be responsive to families (e.g., using a strengths-based approach with families, collaborating to develop IFSPs). However, the "Conversation Guides," which are the foundation of the home visits, give scripted questions and responses for home visitors to use with families. In a description of the "Conversation Guides" during the first visit with families, the home visitor script reads, "You will notice that I am going to be reading from this manual. That is because it includes 'Conversation Guides' for our visits." The scripted nature of the guides leaves little room for home visitors to adaptively respond to families. Additionally, while families can ask which module to progress to next, little guidance is provided to modify activities based on the family's interests, strengths, or needs.

Peer Support: Growing Great Kids™ for Preschoolers includes a few short sections that discuss the importance of social support for families (e.g., "Growing Your Support Network... Strengthening Protective Buffers" in Growing Great Families). However, no explicit guidance is offered on how home visitors can bring families together for group socializations.

Relationships with Parents and Families: Growing Great Kids™ offers specific guidance for building positive relationships with families that is integrated throughout the curriculum materials and structure of home visits. Each home visit starts with "Making Connections," a dedicated time for home visitors and families to talk through what the family is experiencing, as well as to recognize the efforts of families. The "Conversation Guides" provide home visitors with conversation scripts that could support home visitors' relationships with families (e.g., "This is a partnership, so I will be listening closely to what is going on with you and your child and where you want to go next in the curriculum."). The materials offer a strengths-based approach for home visitors to use with families (e.g., a focus on "accentuating the positives"). Moreover, "Home Time," the last part of home visits, is a time for home visitors to check in with families about taking concepts and activities into the week.

Responsive Interactions with Parents and Families: The curriculum provides some information for home visitors on how to be responsive to families (e.g., using a strengths-based approach with families, collaborating to develop "Individualized Family Support Plans"). It also provides a tool for family self-assessment ("GGK Tool"). However, it is not clear how the tool is used to support collaborative planning. Additionally, the "Conversation Guides," which are the foundation of all curriculum manuals, give scripted questions and responses for home visitors to use with families. In a description of the "Conversation Guides" during the first visit with families, the home visitor script reads, "You will notice that I am going to be reading from this manual. That is because it includes ‘Conversation Guides' for our visits." The scripted nature of the guides leaves little room for home visitors to adaptively respond to families. Additionally, while families can ask which module to progress to next, little guidance is provided to modify activities based on the family's interests, strengths, or needs.

Peer Support: Growing Great Kids™: Prenatal–36 Months includes a few short sections that discuss the importance of social support for families (e.g., "Growing Your Support Network ... Strengthening Protective Buffers" in Growing Great Families). However, no explicit guidance is offered on how home visitors can gather families together for group socializations within this curriculum. The publisher offers a separate curriculum, Growing Great Socializations, that programs can purchase to support group socializations.