Home Visitation Intervention Programs and Success Variables

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Home Visitation Intervention Programs and Success Variables Introduction A successful intervention is one of the main goals of work with infants and toddlers and their families. What works, what is really successful, and how to achieve this goal are the reasons for the choice of my topic. The studies I used examined variables at the level of relationships: some directly on the parent-child relationship, some on the family-staff relationship, and some on the parent-staff relationships. Some home interventions were successful while others were not. The successful interventions were designed to be sensitive to the culture and context in which families live. They took into account relationships, family, community, and culture and the interplay between those systems. In particular my paper will highlight the helping relationship between staff and parents, the importance of family circumstances and ethnic background, strength-based approaches, and the enhancement of parent-child interactions. Brief History and Overview Early intervention and prevention programs began in the 1960’s, during a decade in which the United States launched a “war on poverty,” and many programs were developed for economically disadvantaged preschoolers. They were based on the assumption that learning disabilities were best treated early, before formal schooling begins, as well as on the hope that early enrichment would offset the declines in IQ and achievement common among low SES children of ethnic minority and other backgrounds. Programs such as Project Head Start, which was initiated by the federal government in 1965, is one of the largest of these programs. Especially in the past 20 years, there has been a large variety of early interventions for high risk children (Meisels, Dichtelmiller, & Fong-ruey, 1993). Since this time period, early interventions and preventions have
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