Strategy

Parents as Teachers (PAT) Part of the Evidence Based Home Visiting Strategy

What is it?

Parents as Teachers (PAT) is a prenatal through kindergarten home visiting program that promotes healthy development, school readiness, and family well-being. The program equips parents with skills to enhance their child’s development. The PAT model includes home visits from certified parent educators, group meetings, health and developmental screenings, and a resource network. Through these services, parent educators are able to detect developmental delays and health issues, prevent child abuse and neglect, and prepare children for school academic success. 

What is the evidence base?

Parents in PAT read to their children more often, experience increased parent happiness when caring for their child, and are more likely to enroll them in a preschool program. Children demonstrate an improvement in school readiness, adaptive behavior, developmental status, and language skills. Children also demonstrate a decrease in problem behaviors. 

• Pfannenstiel, Seitz, and Zigler_2003_Promoting School Readiness: The Role of the Parents as Teachers Program
• Schaub et al_2019_Effects of Home-Based Early Intervention on Child Outcomes: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Parents as Teachers in Switzerland