Evaluation of the Impact of the CenteringParenting Clinical Intervention on Kindergarten Readiness in Early Childhood
Boston Medical Center
Summary
Disparities in health begin in early childhood. Early life experiences influence brain development and have significant implications on future health and developmental outcomes. Low-income children are at greater risk of developmental delays in large part due to a lack of an enriched environment. Disparities in early childhood development increase risk for stunted academic achievement throughout the life course. Primary care is a universal exposure in early childhood and therefore is also a significant entry point for promoting optimal child development. There is a need to provide effective, low-cost, and scalable interventions in primary care to support early childhood development.The CenteringParenting intervention is designed to reduce negative health and developmental outcomes within a model of group routine child health care. To date, there is no evidence of the benefits of the CenteringParenting intervention on school readiness, or improvements in parental behaviors that support optimal developmental milestones and achievement. The intent of this study is to determine the effectiveness of the CenteringParenting intervention on school readiness in early childhood, as measured by language development at 24 months, (in addition to health care utilization, child routine care maintenance, parenting stress, caregiver behaviors and attitudes).
Description
Children raised in environments with limited stimulation and lack of exposure to positive interactions are likely to have developmental delays in expressive and receptive language, vocabulary, social skills, behavior-all factors critical for school readiness. Children who enter kindergarten underprepared are more likely to struggle academically and experience lower school achievement, and ultimately impaired opportunities for economic and social mobility as adults. The CenteringParenting intervention is designed to reduce negative health and developmental outcomes within a model of group rout…
Eligibility
- Age range
- Up to 0 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria: For participating practice sites * Practice provides care to patients who are covered by public insurance and/or uninsured (no minimum threshold: all insurance types eligible) * Practices have at least 3,000 primary care visits per year For parent-child dyad * Index child age must be 0-3 months * Parent must be female * Parent must be 18 years of age and older * Parent and child must attend one of the 10 study clinical sites * Parental consent * Parent must be fluent in English or Spanish Exclusion Criteria: For participating practice sites * Does not accept public i…
Interventions
- BehavioralCenteringParenting Intervention
The CenteringParenting(CP) intervention includes group well child care visits during the first 24 months of life. Participants receive a journal with child safety, health and development information. The groups are co-led by a practitioner and support staff member. This bundled intervention supports healthy parent-child interactions and early learning through education and experiential learning within the well-child visit.
- BehavioralRoutine Well Child Care
The Comparison Clinical Sites will receive the Routine Well Child Care standard individual clinical care. This clinic will receive delayed training in the CenteringParenting(CP) intervention approximately 3 months after the completion of recruitment at their study site \[when recruited families will be ineligible for CenteringParenting groups that will start in control sites\]. They will receive anticipatory guidance and handouts that are standard for the clinic.
Location
- Boston Medical CenterBoston, Massachusetts