Inmate Tyrone Parker high-fives his son Tyrone Parker Jr. during a Father's Day visit at California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo, California.
Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
For more than two decades, RAND research has examined issues affecting vulnerable children and youth, including the child-, family-, and community-level factors that place then at risk and how various programs from the prenatal period through adolescence can counteract these disadvantages and improve their well-being. Risk factors include low family income; exposure to trauma as a result of experience with an incarcerated parent, family violence, or a natural disaster; and other adverse early childhood experiences (ACEs).
One area of focus has been early childhood programs such as home visiting, parent education, and high-quality preschool. RAND studies have examined access to and utilization of such programs, approaches to quality improvement, their near-term and longer-run effectiveness, and the economic returns from investing in these early interventions. Other research has assessed programs in the early elementary grades, such as preschool-to-third-grade (P–3) initiatives.
In collaboration with the Los Angeles Unified School District and the University of California Los Angeles, RAND researchers also developed a nationally known cognitive-behavioral intervention to mitigate the effects of trauma on children—the Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS). Through studies on families as well as community resilience, we have conducted studies and proposed solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous, so that children and youth in those communities can thrive.
A RAND study examined current investments in early childhood programs in New Hampshire and how they match with underlying needs, and how New Hampshire communities can take a strategic approach to further early childhood investments.
This study examined the Child Trauma Response Team and its efforts to reduce PTSD symptoms among children exposed to domestic violence.
The Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools program is designed to help students exposed to traumatic events who are experiencing emotional or behavioral problems. The new edition provides updates from two decades of field experience.
This report synthesizes evidence on the outcomes, costs, and benefits of early childhood programs, including those that provide early care and education, home visiting, parent education, government transfers, and combinations of approaches.
Home visits delivered by a nurse-parent educator team reduced children's health care use in the first year of life.
Results of a five-year evaluation of Hawai'i's P-3 initiative, which aimed to have every child reading at grade level by third grade, show students with more years of P-3 exposure were more likely to score proficient on the state reading test.
Lynn Karoly and Gabriella Gonzalez examine the current role of and future potential for early care and education (ECE) programs in promoting healthy development for immigrant children.
