Potentially serving as the primary national literacy initiative, the Reading Seed Programme (RSP) by PUSTAKA Negeri Sarawak aims to enculturate a reading culture from an early age. For instance, RSP was invented to promote reading culture by having the pregnant mother read to their infant until the child was three years old. The process is vital…

Federal guidance allows Head Start grant recipients to apply to the Office of Head Start to shift funding (i.e., convert enrollment slots) from Head Start services for preschool-age children to Early Head Start services for pregnant women, infants, and toddlers. Yet scant information is available about how grant recipients navigate the conversion…

The objective of this systematic review is to identify, appraise and synthesise the best available evidence on the effectiveness of nutritional counselling and education interventions on maternal, infant and child health outcomes, and assess the differences in effects across participants' PROGRESS+ characteristics. To achieve these objectives, we…

The effectiveness of Promoting First Relationships (PFR), a 10-week home visiting program with video feedback, was tested in a randomized controlled trial involving 252 mothers and their 8- to 12-week-old infants. Mothers were eligible if they initiated treatment after mental health screening (depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder…

Prenatal maternal depression affects both mother and fetus with long-term implications for offspring vulnerability to psychopathology through alterations to brain development, stress physiology, negative emotionality, and cognitive control. This article reviews evidence for the negative impact of prenatal maternal depression on offspring…

This article examines the outcomes of implementing a trauma-informed home visiting program in a refugee/immigrant-serving mental health program in Chicago, Illinois. The mental health program used the Baby TALK home visiting program model, an evidence-based relational approach to supporting pregnant mothers and families with children less than 3…

Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting legislation permits states to fund "promising practices"--with the understanding that these models will have a rigorous evaluation component. This article describes an innovative, low cost paraprofessional home visiting model developed in Pennsylvania by the Maternity Care Coalition. In…

In 2010, Congress authorized the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program by enacting section 511 of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 711, which also appropriated funding for fiscal years 2010 through 2014. Subsequently enacted laws extended funding for the program through fiscal year 2022. The program is…

The Strong Start Study tested an innovative, High-Fidelity Wraparound intervention with families in early recovery from substance use. The Strong Start Wraparound model addressed the complex needs of pregnant and parenting women who were in early recovery to increase the protective factors of parental resilience, social connections, concrete…

The Early Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (Baby FACES) is a descriptive study of Early Head Start programs designed to inform policy and practice at both national and local levels. Baby FACES follows two cohorts of children through their time in Early Head Start, starting in 2009, the first wave of data collection. The Newborn…

Today, levels of mistreatment of children are internationally reported as having reached epidemic proportions. Throughout recorded history babies and young children have suffered acts of violence by parents, care providers and others. However, "some believe that, for the first time in history, we are beginning to face the true prevalence and…

Finding high-quality infant care continues to be challenging for many families. Such challenges are even greater for single mothers with limited resources and English language skills. Several years ago, this challenge formed the basis for an urban, center-based program called the Pregnant-Mothers Support Group (PSG). The PSG served single,…

Recent analyses differ on how effective the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) is at improving infant health. We use data from nine states that participate in the Pregnancy Nutrition Surveillance System to address limitations in previous work. With information on the mother's timing of WIC enrollment, we…

Globally, approximately 208 million people aged 15 and older used illicit drugs at least once in the last 12 months; 2 billion consumed alcohol and tobacco consumption affected 25% (World Drug Report, 2008). In the United States, 20.1 million (8.0%) people aged 12 and older were illicit drug users, 129 million (51.6%) abused alcohol and 70.9…

This volume explores whether the nation's early childhood programs are boosting child development and preparing children for schooling and proposes reforms that would improve the programs. The volume contains contrasting papers on the success of Head Start, Early Head Start, and home-visiting programs and on policies that would improve these three…