Baby face qualitative Evaluation

 
Baby FACE 
Wilder Research, January 2015 
 
Qualitative Evaluation 
39 
[My] grandson [is] learning to sit and listen when [parent educator] works with him. He knows how 
to better listen to the teacher and do class activities.
Parenting skills and confidence
Contributing to child development and school readiness is that parents in the program are 
learning and gaining confidence as a parent, as noted by 21 parent educators and seven 
supervisors across 16 sites.
The home visits, activities, handouts, Family Circle speakers, and even screening materials are 
helping parents learn the developmental milestones, and what activities they can be doing with 
their child at each stage of development. They also learn basic parenting skills, such as 
breastfeeding, choosing child care, discipline, and potty training techniques.
Some families wouldn’t know what the next developmental steps would be, without this. That has 
been a great help to many families.
It teaches parents the basics of having a child. It helps with tips, with breast feeding, with childcare, 
with child development - some things that some families just don’t know about. 
There is the change in parenting skills. You have families with older children, and they say how 
they have changed, like now sitting down and talking with their children, rather than yelling at them, 
or doing activities with them or reading to them.
I have had a lot of mothers say they didn’t know certain information about a child, or things like 
speech and talking with them properly, or information on discipline. 
Five parent educators reported how the program is contributing to parents’ awareness of their 
role as the child’s “first teacher.”
Basically, this whole thing, everything works well to promote that parent engagement. When you 
focus on family well-being, they want to be engaged. From prenatal to now three, understanding 
the important role of development, and knowing that they are their child’s first teacher, that 
everything they do with their child is so important. 
A lot of families, before the program, didn’t know that they are their child’s first teacher. [Parents] 
now don’t think that it is somebody else’s job all the time. As a tribal member, they may be used to 
things being done for them, but now they know the responsibility is on them for their child.
[Success] is knowing that the parent has taken the role [of] the child’s first teacher, and they are 
guiding them, disciplining them, showing them activities, reading to them, playing games with them. 
And when the child gets the activity, picks up the lesson, then they are all excited, and you know 
you have done something well. And getting the feedback from the families on the next visit. They 
tell you what they did, and they show you; you know that they understand what that whole activity 
was about. You are giving it back to them and helping them look for ways they can do things. They 
have resources right there, in their homes, to make things. And they can make up their own stories, 
without always having an actual book in their hand. The excitement is there.

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