Descriptive Study of Early Head Start: Recruitment materials

Early Head Start

Family and Child

Experiences

Survey

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Administration for Children and Families

The Early Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (Baby FACES) is the largest national study of Early Head Start ever undertaken to gather information about families served by Early Head Start. The Office of Head Start and your local Early Head Start program are working hard to improve services—Baby FACES is helping us learn how we are doing.

To understand Early Head Start better, the Baby FACES research team collects information in many different ways. If your family is selected, we will ask to interview you each spring while your child is in Early Head Start. We will ask you questions about yourself, your family, and your experience with Early Head Start.

Participating families will be interviewed and receive $35. We will also meet with your child and ask him or her to do a set of activities so that we can learn about children’s development. The activities we will ask your child to do are the kinds of things children do at Early Head Start. You will also receive a gift for your child.

All the answers you and your child give are confidential. They will never be shared with anyone from Early Head Start. The decision to take part in the study is yours. However, if you decide not to be part of Baby FACES (even though we hope you will), it will not affect your or your child’s Early Head Start participation.

Baby FACES is sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families, the government agency which oversees Early Head Start. The work is being conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR). All staff members working on Baby FACES have lots of experience doing research with young children and their families, and have been fully trained for this study.

If you have any questions about Baby FACES, you may call Mathematica’s toll-free number X-XXX-XXX-XXXX between 9 A.M. and 9 P.M. Eastern Time. After these hours you may leave a message and we will return your call.

More than 2,000 families and children from Early Head Start programs across the nation are participating in the first round of Baby FACES. We hope yours will be one of the families helping us in Baby FACES.

Thank you for your participation! Your help is valuable to us and to all Early Head Start children and families!