Early Head Start View all reports on this topic

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is a major source of information on Head Start programs and the children and families they serve. Since 1997, FACES has conducted studies in a nationally representative sample of Head Start programs, but has historically not included Region XI, whose programs are designed to serve predominantly AI/AN children and families. AI/AN FACES, is designed to fill this information gap.

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE), in collaboration with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has initiated this project to explore...

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), has contracted with Mathematica Policy Research to launch the Assessing the Implementation and Cost of High-Quality ECE (ECE-ICHQ) project...

The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project demonstrated that applying behavioral insights to challenges facing human services programs can improve program operations and outcomes at relatively low cost. The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency Next Generation project will continue ACF’s exploration of the application of behavioral science to the programs and target populations of ACF. This next generation project, launched in September 2015...

OPRE’s child and family development work includes research and evaluation projects primarily concerned with child care and child welfare. This portfolio additionally examines the culturally diverse experiences of children and families served by ACF programs.

Research focuses on five major areas, including: Child Care, Head Start and Early Head Start, Child Welfare, Cultural Diversity, Cross-Cutting Early Childhood Research...

The Child Care and Early Education Policy and Research Analysis Project is a contract awarded by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation to Child Trends. The purpose of this contract is to support the provision of expert...

Child Care & Early Education Research Connections (RC) promotes high-quality research in child care and early education and the use of research findings in policymaking. This easy-to-use website offers a free, comprehensive, and up-to-date collection of scholarly research, policy briefs, government reports, datasets, and instruments from a wide range of disciplines and sources. Interactive tools allow users to refine searches, download full text documents, build customized tables...

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) awarded eight cooperative agreements in fiscal year 2016 for the first cohort of Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Implementation Research and Evaluation Planning Grants: Phase I/Cohort 1. These cooperative agreements are intended to help CCDF Lead Agencies plan for an evaluation of the implementation of regulations in response to the goals of the CCDBG Act of 2014. Projects are led by CCDF Lead Agencies....

The goal of this project was to develop a new measure that will assess the quality of child care settings, specifically the quality of caregiver-child interactions for infants and toddlers in non-parental care. The new measure is sensitive to the...

The Head Start Graduate Student Research grant program is designed to build research capacity in and knowledge of effective early childhood interventions with low-income children and families. The grant program does this by providing support for dissertation research conducted by graduate students working in partnership with local Head Start or Early Head Start programs. Many former grantees have become leading researchers who continue to conduct research that informs and improves Head Start/Early Head Start, other early childhood intervention practices, and our understanding of low-income populations.

The purpose of this task order is to expand the knowledge base on early childhood development and programming by supporting secondary data analysis using archived datasets funded by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE)...

The Early Head Start Family and Child Experiences Study (Baby FACES) continues a series of ongoing descriptive studies aimed at maintaining an up-to-date, extensive knowledge base to support Early Head Start policies and programs...

Early experiences influence life-long health and well-being. A growing cluster of research on early adversity, trauma and toxic stress underscores the importance of both reducing stressors on the children and families ACF serves and helping them cope with these experiences. The Buffering Toxic Stress Consortium is...

The overall goal the Early Head Start University Partnerships research grant program is to contribute to the knowledge base regarding how Early Head Start (EHS) and other early care and education programs can promote and improve early child development by supporting both parenting and caregiving. Researchers are working in partnership with one or more EHS center-based programs and/or EHS-Child Care Partnership programs...

The Early Learning Mentor Coach Study (ELMC) was a descriptive study of professional development grants awarded competitively to Head Start programs. The Head Start Early Learning Mentor and Coach grants were funded in September of 2010 to 131...

In the fall of 2011, the Office of Head Start (OHS) significantly expanded its accountability provisions with the establishment of the Head Start Designation Renewal System (DRS). In response to requirements in the Improving Head Start for School...

This project will implement a redesigned Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), a nationally...

The goals of the Head Start Health Manager Descriptive Survey include 1) to describe the characteristics of Health Managers and related staff in Head Start (HS) and Early Head Start (EHS) programs; 2) to identify the current landscape of health...

The overall goal of this year’s Head Start University Partnerships research grant program is to contribute to the knowledge base regarding the role that Head Start can play in promoting family well-being, including health, safety, financial...

ACF’s Hispanic Research Work Group brings together experts in a wide range of content areas relevant to ACF’s mission to assist ACF/OPRE in identifying research priorities concerning low-income, Hispanic families.

The goal of the Home Visiting Career Trajectories project is to examine the state of home visiting careers to understand how people enter the field, the perceived and actual pathways for professional advancement and tenure, and reasons for field attrition.  This work aims to address the paucity of data on the home visiting workforce that can be used to learn how to best recruit and retain high quality staffThe project has two purposes. First, it will provide information on the state of the...

The Human Services Research Partnership of the U.S. Virgin Islands (VI) will explore issues related to social service needs and public welfare systems in the territory. This cooperative agreement will support a partnership among researchers, local...

The Research Partnerships are intended to improve understanding of the most promising human services approaches to improve the quality of life in the region, with particular focus on topics related to the Head Start and Temporary Assistance for...

OPRE plays a central role in advancing understanding and disseminating knowledge about research and evaluation methods and tools that are, or could be, used to enhance knowledge about program and policy effectiveness. The purpose of the Methods...

The Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) Study is a four-year study that will examine the MSHS programs and practices, and the children and families served by the MSHS program. MSHS provides early childhood support for migrant and seasonal farmworkers. The study will examine program practices in multiple domains, including enrollment, recruitment and dual language support. The study will also explore the wellbeing of children and families receiving services...

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation worked in conjunction with the Office of Head Start and the Employment and Training Administration to develop, pilot and implement a Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) Supplement to the National...

The National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) documents the nation's current utilization and availability of early care and education (including school-age care), in order to deepen the understanding of the extent to which families'...

The Network of Infant Toddler Researchers (NITR) was founded by OPRE in 2011 in order to bring together leading researchers studying pregnancy and the first three years of life. OPRE convened NITR to answer questions of interest to ACF and programs...

The Quality of Caregiver-Child Interactions for Infants and Toddlers (Q-CCIIT) observation tool was developed between 2010-2014 to assess the quality of early care and education (ECE) settings for infants and toddlers in non-parental care—specifically, the support that caregivers provide for the social-emotional, language and literacy, and cognitive development of infants and toddlers. The Professional Development Tools to Improve the Quality of Infant and Toddler Care...

This project, launched in September 2015, will investigate how existing work on racial and ethnic disparities could inform more accurate identification and interpretation of ethnic and racial differences in programs administered by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF).

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation is carrying out several research projects for the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) related to two-generation approaches. Two-generation approaches combine intensive, high quality, adult-focused services with intensive, high quality, child-focused programs. Although there is growing interest in this area, more evidence is needed about how these models achieve their goals or if it is possible to implement them at scale...

The eighteen projects funded under the grant program for Secondary Analyses of Data on Child Care and Early Education are conducting  analyses of existing data sets  to answer critical research questions that will inform both policymakers and future research. Topics include associations between subsidy receipt and long-term child achievement, access to early care and education for low-income families, and links between subsidy rates and child care quality...

The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) is undertaking a descriptive study to document the approaches and strategies utilized by tribal organizations awarded cooperative agreements under the Coordination of Tribal TANF and Child Welfare...

In response to a requirement in the Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-134), ACF initiated this project in 2008 to develop a report on limited English proficient (LEP) children and their families participating in Head Start...

The Study of Early Head Start-Child Care (EHS-child care) Partnerships will assess the knowledge base and develop a theory of change model for understanding EHS‐child care partnerships to support quality improvement, child development, and family....

OPRE has commissioned a series of four inter-related reports titled Self-Regulation and Toxic Stress from a team at the Center for Child and Social Policy at Duke University. The team is also preparing a brief focused on implications of these reports for adolescence and young adulthood. The first report, Foundations for Understanding Self-Regulation from an Applied Developmental Perspective provides a comprehensive framework for understanding...

The Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (EHSREP) is a longitudinal impact evaluation of the Early Head Start program initiated in 1996, at the same time that the Early Head Start program was created. Child and family assessments were...