Pilot Evaluation of a Home Visit Parent Training Program in Disadvantaged Families

Objectives: The study reported the pilot evaluation of the Healthy Start Home Visit Program for disadvantaged Chinese parents with preschool children, delivered by trained parent assistants. Home visiting was used to make services more accessible to disadvantaged families. Method: The participants included 21 parent-child dyads. Outcome measures included parent report, teacher report, and direct assessment of children. Results: Paired samples t-test results indicated significant increase in child cognitive measures, child school readiness, child oral health practices; decreases in child sedentary activities, child home injury, and hospital visits; decreases in parenting stress and child behavior problems and increases in social support. The parent assistants delivering the program reported significant decreases in child behavior problems and parenting stress from pretraining to posttraining and completion of home visits. Conclusion: There was promising evidence that the Healthy Start Home Visit Program was effective in addressing the needs of disadvantaged families with preschool children.