Skip to sections below

Share this program

PrintEmail

Summary

Child First was a home visiting program for families with children from birth through age five in which caregivers who were experiencing challenges with their own mental health or their children’s behavior; it provided both care coordination services and a trauma-informed program aimed at promoting executive functioning and healthy family relationships. 

Care coordination involved a home visitor connecting families to available and relevant resources. The trauma-informed program component was implemented in the family's home by a licensed clinician. This component was most commonly Child-Parent Psychotherapy but could include other programs such as Circle of Security, as appropriate.

Families received twice-weekly touchpoints, either in-person or virtually, with a care coordinator and clinician during the first month of enrollment and weekly visits for the remainder of the program, which lasted eight months on average.

The program was implemented at nine Child First sites in Connecticut and one site in North Carolina.

101031-Study of Child First
Populations and employment barriers: Parents, At least a high school diploma or equivalent

Effectiveness rating and effect by outcome domain

View table definitions

Scroll to the right to view the rest of the table columns

Outcome domain Term Effectiveness rating Effect in 2024 dollars and percentages Effect in standard deviations Sample size
Increase earnings Short-term Cannot assess support
Long-term Cannot assess support
Very long-term Cannot assess support
Increase employment Short-term Little evidence to assess support favorable 1% (in percentage points) 0.036 182
Long-term Cannot assess support
Very long-term Cannot assess support
Decrease benefit receipt Short-term Little evidence to assess support favorable $-14 per year -0.004 182
Long-term Cannot assess support
Very long-term Cannot assess support
Increase education and training All measurement periods Cannot assess support

Effectiveness ratings

  • Well- supported
  • Supported
  • Mixed support
  • Not supported
  • Insufficient evidence
  • Cannot assess support

Studies of this program

Study quality rating Study counts per rating
High High 1
Back to top

Implementation details

Organizations implementing program

Child First

The information contained here reflects how the program was implemented at the time of the evaluation.

Local context

The providers and study sites were located in Connecticut and North Carolina. Child First also operated sites in Colorado, Florida, and Pennsylvania at the time of the study, but no study sites were in these locations.

Characteristics of research participants
Black or African American
20%
White, not Hispanic
44%
Another race
4%
Hispanic or Latino of any race
31%

The race and ethnicity categories may sum to more than 100 percent if the authors reported race and ethnicity separately; in these cases, we report the category White, rather than White, not Hispanic.

State(s) where implemented

AL AK AZ AR CA CO CT DE DC FL GA HI ID IL IN IA KS KY LA ME MD MA MI MN MS MO MT NE NV NH NJ NM NY NC ND OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VA WA WV WI WY Canada

Pathways to Work refers to programs by the names used in study reports or manuscripts. Some program names may use language that is not consistent with our style guide, preferences, or the terminology we use to describe populations.