Evaluating the Incredible Years Evaluating the Incredible Years School Readiness School Readiness

Parenting ProgrammeParenting Programme

Kirstie Cooper

The IY School ReadinessProgramme

Child-directed play: Strengthening children’s

social, emotional, and cognitive skills

Emotion coaching to build emotional expression

Building children’s self-esteem and creativity

Teaching children to problem-solve

Building children’s language skills

Part 1

Part 2

Encouraging social, emotional, academic and

problem solving skills through interactive reading

Building children’s 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

Commenting and describing

Asking open-ended questions

Responding with encouragement

Expanding on what the child says

Reading with CARE building blocks

CARE

To establish:

A battery of effective measures to assess children’s school readiness

The effectiveness of the new Programme in improving children’s school readiness

Any difficulties or barriers in implementing the programme

The Evaluation

• 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

Recruitment

• 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

Group delivery & data collection

DemographicsPersonal 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

Demographics

%

Child gender 52% boys

Caregiver gender 98% females

Biological parent 100%

Married / living together 81%

Very low income 36%

State benefits 25%

Child BehaviourStrengths 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

SDQ Total impact

Child BehaviourEyberg 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.

ECBI Total problems

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

PAROT - playParent emotion coaching

PAROT - play Parent labelled praise

PAROT – playChild positive behaviours

PAROT – playParent critical statements

PAROT – readingParent open-ended questions

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?”

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

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

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