1. Evaluating the Incredible Years School Readiness Parenting Programme Kirstie Cooper Supervised by Dr Tracey Bywater Incredible Years Wales School of Psychology

2. Presentation Content • What is “school readiness”? • The School Readiness Programme • The evaluation • Aims • Method • Progress to date

3. What is ‘School Readiness’? • No concrete definition • Preacademic knowledge e.g. numbers, letters, colours predict school readiness. (Forget-Dubois et al., 2007, Lemelin et al., 2007) • Cognitive skills, such as executive functions and memory, are better predictors of school readiness (Blair, 2006)

4. What is ‘School Readiness’? Multi-dimensional construct: • Children’s engagement in learning • Emotion regulation • Communication and language skills • Social competence • Pre-literacy skills • Physical well-being • Academic knowledge and cognition

5. The IY School ReadinessProgramme • More children arrive in school without social and self-regulatory skills • Low academic achievement and poor relationships • The IY School Readiness Programme was developed to address risk factors associated with children’s lack of academic readiness and poor home-school connections (Webster-Stratton, 2004)

6. The Incredible Years Programmes Teacher Programme 6 full day sessions held monthly Child Dinosaur treatment 18 – 22 sessions 6 children Child Dinosaur Classroom 2 sessions per wk 30 weeks Fully revised ADVANCED 9 sessions helping adults communicate & problem solve Fully revised School Aged BASIC 12 sessions 6 - 12 years Infant 8 sessions 0 - 12 months Toddler 13 sessions 1 - 2 years Fully revised Pre-School BASIC 18 sessions 3 - 6 years School Readiness 4 sessions 2 - 5 years 6

7. The School Readiness Programme • 4 sessions delivered to parents through schools • Designed to help parents with their child’s transition to full-time school • Universal programme • The ultimate aims are to: • Improve children’s school readiness • Prevent conduct problems and academic underachievement • Enhance home-school links

8. Part 1 Child-directed play: Strengthening children’s social, emotional, and cognitive skills Emotion coaching to build emotional expression  Building children’s self-esteem and creativity  Teaching children to problem-solve  Building children’s language skills

9. Part 2 Encouraging social, emotional, academic and problem solving skills through interactive reading Building children’s self-esteem and self-confidence in their reading ability  Having fun with books  Letting the child be the storyteller  Using the Reading With CARE building blocks

10. Reading with CARE building blocks Commenting and describing Asking open-ended questions Responding with encouragement Expanding on what the child says C A R E

11. The evaluation • The IY Basic Parent & TCM Programmes have been successfully delivered and researched across Wales • These programmes do not specifically address the dimensions of school readiness • The IY School Readiness Programme has never been researched

12. Aims To establish: • A battery of effective measures to assess children’s school readiness • The effectiveness of the new Programme in improving children’s school readiness • Any difficulties or barriers in implementing the programme

13. Research Questions • Does the programme benefit all children and parents? • For which children and families is the intervention most effective? • What are the environmental/contextual circumstances that improve the likelihood of success? • When is the best time to run the programme?

14. Method (i) Participants Phase 1 5 schools in Gwynedd (4 intervention, 1 control*) Schools recommended by Gwynedd Education Recruited  26 parents Phase 2 7 schools in Gwynedd (5 intervention, 2 control*) Currently recruiting parents  Aim 46 parents *Waiting-list control

15. Method (i) Participants Inclusion criteria for recruiting parents: • Parent has child aged 3 - 4 starting nursery class in Sept 2010 • The parent targeted must be the primary caregiver • Parents able to attend parenting programme for 4 weeks (2 hrs / week) • Parent agree to be visited by research team and complete measures

16. Method (ii) Design • Pre-test Post-test Nonequivalent Group design • Intervention and control groups compared • Groups assigned by cluster on a ‘first come first serve’ basis rather than by randomisation • First 4 schools to sign up allocated to intervention • Cross-over design, control become intervention

17. Method (iii) Procedure • Two members of staff at each school trained to deliver the programme (1 full day training) • Recruitment of parents: • Participating schools give posters / info sheets to all families of 3 - 4 year old nursery class children • Parents invited to attend the course and participate in the evaluation • A researcher to conduct an initial home visit

18. Method (iii) Procedure Programme delivery: Phase 1Phase 2 Intervention schools Sept 2010 March 2011 Control schools March 2011 Sept 2011 • 2 hours per week for 4 weeks • 2 school staff to run the programme while children are in class • Group leaders receive weekly supervision

19. Method (iii) Procedure Data Collection: Home visits to families Phase 1Phase 2 Baseline visit Aug/Sept 2010 Feb 2011 Follow-up 1 Jan/Feb 2011 June 2011 Follow-up 2 May/Jun 2011 October 2011 • 1 hour: Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, direct observation • Family given a book for their child as thank you

20. Home Measures Semi-structured interview Demographics (PDHQ) Questionnaires Child Behaviour (SDQ, ECBI) Parent Competency (PSOC) Direct Observation(PAROT)

21. Direct Observation Play and Reading Observation Tool (PAROT) • Part 1 – Child-directed play 15 mins of unstructured play between parent and child • Part 2 – Interactive Reading 15 mins of parent and child reading • One of three bilingual books used at each time point

23. Home-School Relationship Qualitative/Quantitative Data Focus group • e.g. “What effect do you feel this programme has had on the relationship between the parents and your school?” Group Leader Evaluation / Parent Evaluation • Self-report questionnaire, rate on 5/6point Likert scale Parent Semi-structured Interview • e.g. “Has the programme had an effect on the relationship between you as a parent and the school?”

24. Progress to Date: Phase 1: Final sample: 20 Intervention 6 Control Phase 2: Target sample: 28 Intervention 18 Control

25. Thank you for listeningDiolch am wrando Any Questions?