Summary 8-5-08

Summary

This package provides supporting statements for Early Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (Baby FACES). A prior package described (and received approval for) a pretest of selected measures. This statement addresses the burden involved with sampling and recruiting programs to participate in the study, as well as the complete burden associated with the data collection we propose.

Section A

The study is authorized by the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 (PL 103-62) and by the 2007 reauthorization of Head Start (Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007 PL 110-134, Section 649 (h)), that requires a study of the status of dual language learner children and their families participating in Head Start and Early Head Start programs.

This will be a descriptive study of Early Head Start programs with a representative sample of programs and children in two age cohorts: perinatal (subjects will be pregnant women within two months of their due date and the mothers and their infants up to two months after birth) and age 1 (children between 10 and 14 months of age); both cohorts will be followed until children reach age 3. The age 1 cohort will be followed up at 3 1/2 years of age to learn about transitions out of the program.

Baby FACES findings will help inform policy development and program improvement at all levels. Research questions that Baby FACES will answer include (1) identifying services offered, their frequency, and their intensity; (2) identifying the key characteristics of children and families currently served in Early Head Start (with a focus on dual language learners); (3) investigating how programs individualize services to meet family needs and the match between identified needs and services; (4) showing how children and families are faring over time; and (5) exploring associations between the type and quality of Early Head Start services and child and family well-being.

Analyses will employ a variety of methods, including descriptive statistics (means, percentages), simple tests of differences across subgroups and over time (t-tests, chi-square tests), trend analysis (growth curve modeling), and multivariate analysis (regression analysis, hierarchical linear modeling).

Section B

Baby FACES will use a stratified clustered sample design. We will select a probability sample of Early Head Start programs using the Head Start Program Information Report (PIR) as the sample frame. For each program in the sample, we will select all children in the spring of 2009 who are within a four-month window of their first birthday or within a four-month perinatal window for newborns. We will produce both cross-sectional and longitudinal weights to be used for analyses of these data.

The sample sizes are designed to be large enough to detect developmentally meaningful differences, given various assumptions about the sample design and its impact on the variance of estimates.