Early Childhood Program Evaluations and Research

Faculty at the Center for Child and Human Development provide ongoing support to local programs engaged in early childhood research as well as program evaluations.  Using a participatory action approach, community-based programs enter into a partnership with faculty to assess the impact or effectiveness of programs serving young children and their caregivers. Examples of research and program evaluations that are ongoing include:

• Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation in Maryland:  Beginning with a project in Anne Arundel county (the BEST program) and expanding to include three other models, this is a multi-site study of the effectiveness of mental health consultation provided to child care programs who are working with young children who have challenging behavior.  Each site is using a similar protocol so that results may be compared.  The three additional sites are:
  • Project Right Steps, operated in the five-county mid-shore region of Maryland's Eastern Shore by Chesapeake Child Care Resource Center;
  • The Early Intervention Project, operated by the Baltimore City Child Care Resource Center serving child care providers in the City of Baltimore; and,
  • Project ACT, operated by Abilities Network serving counties across the state of Maryland.
• The BEST program: four-year outcomes from the provision of mental health consultation services to young children in licensed child care show a dramatic improvement in social skills and decreases in problem behaviors. Two master's level specialists worked with child care providers who had identified children at imminent risk for expulsion.  
• Reflective Supervision for Mental Health Consultation:  A GUCCHD clinical psychologist is providing reflective supervision to consultants who are working with early childhood staff who have identified young children with social-emotional or behavioral issues. This process is ongoing in Alaska as well as with Project Right Steps and Project ACT.  This process is being evaluated by faculty at GUCCHD.
• Queen Anne's County Early Learning Opportunities Act (ELOA) : the Families First Play to Learn Center has contracted with GUCCHD to fund the evaluation of their ELOA grant focused on providing a multi-generational approach to building early literacy.