Early Head Start Prenatal Services and Toddlers’ Socioemotional Skills: The Role of Program Approach

Abstract

The prenatal period is an ideal time for interventions and social service programs to initiate supports for families, such as is done in many home visiting and two-generation programs, including Early Head Start (EHS). EHS works with pregnant people enrolled in the program to determine what their specific needs for services are, and then either provide the services or offer referrals to them in the community. However, there is incredible variability in what the specific services that programs offer are comprised of. This study explored (1) the availability of prenatal services EHS offers across home- and center-based program approaches; (2) associations between different types of prenatal services and children’s socioemotional skills at age 2 among families enrolled in both program approaches; and (3) differences in these associations across subgroups of children who attended home- or center-based EHS at age one in light of prior research showing differences in EHS’ effect on children’s socioemotional skills across program approaches (Chazan-Cohen et al. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 78:93–109, 2013), using data from the Early Head Start Child and Family Experiences Study 2009–2012 (Baby FACES). We found that the availability of services differed based on program approach, and that the availability of comprehensive services in particular were linked with toddlers’ socioemotional development, especially for those who attended home-based EHS at age one. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed, particularly in relation to the work being done to support expectant families in home-based Early Head Start programs.