Program Evaluation Report Parent Education: Disciplining Your Toddler

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Program Evaluation ReportParent Education
Disciplining Your Toddler Preschooler

• First 5 Sonoma County Children and Families
  Commission
• March 2006

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Program Description

• Six-week class for parents
• Content focuses on 2 -5 year-olds
• Primary principle is responsive discipline
• Respect for child, role modeling, emphasis on the
  positive
• Choices, expectations, consequences, focused
  attention
• Similar content delivered in Spanish Kindergym

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Evaluation Methods

• Analyzed intake forms from 2003-2005 for 26 DYTP
  (22English 4--Spanish) and 17 KinderGym
  classes (all Spanish)
• Conducted 20 phone interviews with DYTP
  participants one month after class
• Conducted 8 phone interviews in Spanish with
  Kindergym participants one month after class
• Conducted analysis on forms completed by CPI
  staff for process data

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Strengths Limitations of Evaluation

• Strengths
• Characteristics data sample size is large
• Focused on one program intervention
• Spoke to parents one month post-class
• Limitations
• Interview sample size is small
• Characteristics data is not available on an
  individual basis aggregate only

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Class Locations
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Gender of Participants 2003-2005
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Ethnicity of Participants 2003-2005
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Ethnicity of Participants 2003-2005
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Language of Participants 2003-2005
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Other Characteristics 2003-2005

• The majority of participants were two-parent
  families 57.6 for DYTP 88.8 for Spanish
  Kindergym.
• Two-thirds of participants (66.7) reported
  having children 0-3 years old nearly half
  (46.9) reported having children 3-5 years old.
• Very few participants (7.3 of DYTP 0 of
  Spanish Kindergym) reported having children with
  special needs.

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Other Characteristics 2003-2005
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Referral Sources 2003-2005
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Characteristics of Interviewees

• Data available for 26 of 28 interviewees no name
  available for two DYTP interviewees.
• 21 interviewees were mothers 5 were fathers. No
  Spanish KinderGym interviewees were fathers.

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Parents Report of Change
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Parents Report of Change
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Themes Parenting Changes
Parents identified changes they see in their
knowledge and in parenting skills since taking
the class.
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New Parenting Skills

• Getting down to his level physically, not
  yelling across roomkeeping a neutral voice.
• I can set the boundaries better now by using
  tools like a timer.
• I talk to him more about what's going on not so
  much Why are you doing what you're doing? but
  trying to educate him about ways to express his
  feelings.

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Increased Empathy with Child

• I just pay more attention to what they might be
  thinking and how they are feeling in order to
  anticipate how they will react and how they will
  respond to me.
• When I took the class, it really opened my eyes
  to the child's needs
• Trying to look at the world more through his
  eyes.

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Awareness of Developmental Stages

• At this age (3) he's in the zone of separating
  himself from parents.
• Recognizing that a lot of his behaviors are
  perfectly within the norm of his age.
• We talked about what they do at certain ages and
  whats normal and thats helped me understand
  some of the things he does.

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More Better Interactions with Child

• Choosing my battles more, not engaging in every
  time he's doing something wrong.
• We have to dedicate more time to play and
  teaching our children. Before, we didn't care
  about that.
• We do a lot of reading and read her books, and
  we knew that she was always pretty independent
  and thought she could do other things on her own,
  but now we have more interaction than before.

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Additional interviewee perspectives

• Id change having people for whom this is
  mandated being in the same class with people
  living with their child.
• I don't feel like the before/after questions are
  good for me to answer because I stopped going to
  the classes midway through. I am uncomfortable
  with the court-ordered parents. I didn't know it
  was going to be like that.

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Additional interviewee perspectives

• Three interviewees said they didnt learn much
  new about child development.
• I needed information and it was more of a
  support group. I didn't need a support group I
  wanted to learn new things.
• Two interviewees wanted more on twins

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Summary of Key Findings

• Data is collected by program in paper form, but
  technology for managing/analyzing is lacking
• White participants more likely to come from
  single-parent families
• Quality of referral data does not allow for
  analyses. Relatively low percentage of referrals
  from Child Protective Services highest
  percentage from CPI itself.

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Summary of Key Findings

• Cultural Competence
• CPI used culturally appropriate marketing to
  attract Latino participants ? Proportion of
  Latino participants increased significantly in
  2004 and 2005 vs 2003
• Majority of Kindergym participants were repeat
  customers ? reflective of a cultural norm for
  Latino population social/relationship-driven
• DYCP and Kindergym deliver similar content,
  achieve similar outcomes, but Kindergym is
  delivered more organically
• Bottom line
• This intervention was found to be effective for
  participants evaluation did not assess staying
  power of changes

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Recommendations

• Invest in data system that allows for
  demographics and pre-/post-class analyses
• Collect and analyze more detail on referrals
• Continue/build upon successful culturally
  appropriate strategies

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Questions?