Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Strengthening Parent Engagement with Federal Anti-Poverty Programs: Three Experimental Studies

(Family and Child Policy)

Parent and family engagement in federal anti-poverty programs is often lower than desired or even required. For example, participation rates in welfare-to-work programs can be as low as 50%. Head Start, the nation’s largest federally funded preschool program, requires minimum monthly center attendance rates of 85%, but many centers only reach rates of 75%. Policymakers and program leaders continue to struggle with effective strategies to improve program participation, and the most common approaches (e.g., monitoring daily attendance) have had limited success. Yet program impacts can only be realized when participants are present to reap gains. Behavioral science suggests that individuals may benefit from behavioral “nudges” to support goal achievement. Nudges can take the form of electronic messages or written notification that may remind parents, for example, of the benefits of regular attendance. Social capital theory also suggests that organizations like Head Start centers can improve parent engagement by creating opportunities and inducements to build social connection with other parents and with Head Start centers (Small, 2009). We present evidence from three experimental studies aimed at improving parent engagement and program participation. The first uses behaviorally informed materials to test the impact of “loss-aversion” or “benefit-focused” notices among Temporary Assistance for Needy Families participants. The experiment is part of the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project which was designed to improve the implementation and efficacy of programs administered by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). The second, the Show Up 2 Grow Up study from the Behavioral Insights and Parenting Lab at the University of Chicago, uses text messages to remind parents of children enrolled in Head Start centers of the goals they have set for their children’s attendance and ways to address barriers. The third study evaluates the impact of a low-cost intervention designed to promote parents’ social capital as a potential influence on parent engagement and children’s Head Start center attendance. The Child Attendance and Social Capital Project, part of Northwestern University’s Two-Generation Research Initiative, tests the impact of two treatments compared to a control group: assigning children to classrooms based on neighborhood of residence (geography) or the geography treatment plus offering parents the opportunity to partner to improve children’s attendance. All three studies emerged from established research-program collaborations, and study findings will provide evidence on how to improve program service delivery and likely influence federal policy. An academic expert in behavioral economics will serve as the first discussant. A former Director of the Office of Family Assistance at ACF, who has extensive knowledge of anti-poverty policies, will serve as the second discussant. The panel will be chaired by an Ed.D candidate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education who will become an Education Policy Researcher at RAND Corporation this fall. Reference: Small, M. L. (2009). Unanticipated gains: Origins of network inequality in everyday life. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.