Brief
Reading is an essential activity that is linked to children’s cognitive development, academic skills, and future employment opportunities. Children often become interested in reading by watching and mimicking their parents or participating in child-parent reading routines. Although mothers have a big role to play, research shows that fathers are particularly influential for children’s language and literacy development, which means they are a promising point of intervention for efforts to improve children’s language and literacy. Reading together and engaging in other literacy activities, such…
Brief
This brief explains the Two-Generation (Two-Gen) approach for working with families builds well-being by creating a solid and stable foundation through integrated, intensive, and high-quality services in four areas of focus: early childhood education, elementary education, economic stability, and family engagement. It discusses findings from a research study that explored how three States (Connecticut, Colorado, and Utah) are development and implementing a Two-Gen framework in practice and how support for an intentional Two-Gen approach can be translated into a coordinated implementation…
Brief
This brief describes the five protective factors that are the foundation of the Strengthening Families Approach: parental resilience, social connections, concrete support in times of need, knowledge of parenting and child development, and social and emotional competence of children. It explains the Strengthening Families Approach benefits all families building on family strengths, can be implemented through small but significant changes in everyday actions, can build on existing programs, and is grounded in research. A chart shows levers, strategies, protective factors, and results of the…
