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News about Parents as Teachers
Since the early 1980's, Parents as Teachers (PAT) has been an international leader in the field of early childhood parent education and family support, providing a model for serving families throughout pregnancy until their children enter kindergarten, usually age five. The PAT curriculum content is based on current research in the areas of child development, neuroscience and strengthening families protective factors. The curriculum and training address what reliable research has identified as the essential components of school readiness and child abuse prevention. Throughout their 25 year history, the organization has continually updated the content of their materials, as well as the guidance for delivering high quality early childhood and parenting information to families, in order to incorporate best practices based on research and evaluation.
Leading early childhood education and child development organizations and professionals seek out PAT curricula and training because it easily integrates into other services they may be providing, allowing them to tailor information to the specific needs of any family and provide practical, hands-on application for parents in real-world situations. Beginning in January of 2011, PAT began implementing changes to their model in order to achieve even more positive outcomes for children and families.
The familiar Born to Learn name which referred to a curriculum version has changed but the research based, evidence informed model comprised of the four critical components of home visitation, group interactions, developmental screenings and resource and referral, remains strong and intact. The core values upon which PAT was built remain unchanged.
The early years are critical for later school and life success; parents are their children’s first and most influential teachers.
Established and emerging research should be the foundation of parent education and family support curricula, training, materials and services.
All young children and their families deserve the same opportunities to succeed, regardless of any demographic, geographic or economic considerations.
An understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures is essential in serving families.
Well-designed independent research studies over the years have consistently confirmed the effectiveness of PAT in improving children’s development across multiple domains, increasing their school readiness and improving parent knowledge of early childhood development and parenting practices, identifying delays and health issues, and preventing child abuse and neglect.
With the change there are now two options for implementing the PAT model as an Affiliate or an Approved User.
The Affiliate pathway leads to high quality replication and strong, significant outcomes for children. The goal is to help organizations fully understand and put into practice those things that make a quality PAT affiliate. Organizations interested in affiliation must comply with the PAT Essential Requirements. Many programs currently implementing the PAT model will find they are already in compliance with the 2011 Essential Requirements. In July 2011, all existing programs completed an Affiliate Performance Report (the new name for the Annual Program Report) that helps determine this compliance. Existing programs have until 2014 to move into compliance. They will submit a plan that addresses the areas in which they are weak along with their plans to move into compliance.
The Approved Users path is for those organizations that cannot meet requirements for model replication as an affiliate. This pathway lays the foundation for home visiting as a methodology within the early childhood system. It is the ideal path for those users who want to provide high quality child development and parenting information to families, but which do not or cannot feasibly implement all four components of the PAT model.
If you are not sure which path is best for your organization, please refer to the PAT National Office website to see a discussion of the two options. You may also contact Becky Blue at bblue@csc.csiu.org or Wenda Deardorff at wdeardorff@csc.csiu.org if you would like to talk about which path your program is best suited for your organization as you plan for training or retraining program staff.
Parents as Teachers in Pennsylvania
In 1992, the first Pennsylvania funded Parents as Teachers (PAT) programs were implemented in 13 newly created family centers, by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Today, PAT is being used by over 104 programs statewide to provide research based, child development and parenting education to more than 10,000 children and 8,500 families in the Commonwealth. In Pennsylvania, the PAT model is used in a variety of settings including family centers, Head Start and Early Head Start, Even Start, ELECT, child care, Children’s Trust Fund, grant and foundation funded programs, faith-based and hospital sponsored programs, and county Children and Youth agencies.
With funding from a variety of sources, the Center for Schools and Communities (CSC) maintains the State Systems Office for PAT in Pennsylvania. As the state office, CSC is responsible to develop, support and sustain high quality PAT programs by promoting fidelity to the PAT model, supporting comprehensive, high quality services for all families, overseeing and guiding programs to achieve the PAT outcomes, and expanding the reach of PAT in the state.
The CSC maintains a qualified, experienced state training team and regularly sponsors institute training in both the Parents as Teachers Foundational and Model Implementation Training and Three Years to Kindergarten Entrance Curriculum Training. A variety of other specialized trainings are offered through the Parents as Teachers Knowledge Studio.