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Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY)

Category

Family Support

Child's Age

2-3 years, 3-4 years, 4-5 years

Participant

Children, Parents/Guardian

Languages

English, Spanish

Brief Description

Universal home visiting program for all parents/caregivers, including those facing obstacles such as poverty, social isolation, a lack of education, or other concerns. HIPPY home visitors work with parents/caregivers to help them become their child’s first teacher and prepare their children for success in school through activities focused on their development and cognitive/reading skills.

Expected Impact

  • General increase in scores on elementary standardized tests in comparison to students that did not participate in HIPPY 
  • General increase in positive school outcomes (attendance, grade retention)
  • General increase in mothers’ home involvement
  • General increase in school readiness 
  • At the 26-week benchmark, sites should expect to see improvements in parenting quality among 75% of caregivers and improved developmental readiness for school among 70% of children.

Core Components for Model Fidelity

  • Curriculum: The HIPPY curriculum is designed to help parents of children ages 2-5 years be confident in their role as their child’s first teacher. Parents receive weekly support from their home visitor and engage in activities in four subject areas: literacy and language, math and science, motor development, and social-emotional growth. For each year of curriculum, the families receive 30 weeks of activities, 9 storybooks, and 20 manipulative shapes. 
  • Role Play: HIPPY coordinators and home visitors lead participating parents/caregivers in role play activities each week. The parent/caregiver does the activities with their child after the session ends.
  • Coordinators and Home Visitors: HIPPY is delivered by home visitors who are representative of the communities they serve and completed the HIPPY program themselves. A professional coordinator is responsible for recruiting parents/caregivers, hiring and training home visitors, organizing parent group meetings, and developing enrichment activities. Home visitors and coordinators meet weekly to discuss the previous week’s activities, share their experiences, and role play the upcoming week’s materials/activities.
  • Home Visits and Group Meetings: Home visits provide parents/caregivers with the materials they need to work with their child on developmentally appropriate activities. Group meetings provide social support for parents/caregivers and allow participants to share their experiences. These meetings are led by the home visitor and program coordinator.

Languages Materials are Available in

English, Spanish

Delivery Mode

Home Visits: In-person.

Group Meetings: Families alternate between home visiting and group meetings. Group meetings may be provided in-person or online. Home visits are delivered in-person.

Dosage

Home Visits: Once a week for 30 weeks and up to 3 years (while the child is 2-5 years old). A dosage of 2 years is the minimum recommended. Because HIPPY is not based on mastery of the curriculum, retention is the primary indicator of quality and completion. HIPPY requires that at least 80% of participants remain in the program for 26 weeks for the program to be considered complete. Each home visit lasts 1 hour, during which they work on role-playing the curricula activities with the parents (the child(ren) are not involved). The parents’ homework is to then role play the activities with their children at least 5 days week. 

Group meetings: At least 6 times a year. 

For each year of curriculum, the families receive 30 weeks of activities, 9 storybooks, and 20 manipulative shapes.

Infrastructure for Implementation

Materials: Required materials include home visiting supplies that are needed for the program and not always found in the home (e.g., coffee stirrers, sandpaper, etc.). 

Space: An office with basic furnishings and computer capabilities is required. A location for the group meetings is also necessary.

Staffing Requirements

Coordinator: Responsible for recruiting parents/caregivers, hiring and training home visitors, organizing parent group meetings, and developing enrichment activities. Must have at least a bachelor's degree. One coordinator can serve a maximum of 150-180 families.

Home Visitors: Typically have a background in early education. They live in the community they serve and work with the same families over the course of their three years in the program. They are also former HIPPY parents and therefore familiar with the model. Educational requirements are determined by the local partnership implementing HIPPY. The home visitors are also part of weekly training opportunities to make sure they can serve their families the best. Home visitors typically serve 10-15 families, but some serve upwards of 18-20 families.

NCPC strongly recommends staff receive training in the Standards of Quality for Family Support and Strengthening. Contact Positive Childhood Alliance North Carolina (PCANC) or National Family Support Network (NFSN) for more information, training, and certification. 

Training for Model Fidelity

HIPPY US trains coordinators nationally who are then able to train the home visitors on a weekly basis. New program coordinators are trained through HIPPY for one week prior to the start of the program (annual preservice training).

The coordinator role plays the activities with the home visitors before they complete it with a practice child and then take it into the home.

The annual preservice training is divided into two parts: 

  1. A self-learning, self-guided reading, online course structure (includes history, background, research). 
  2. An in-person component and it involves demonstrating the home visitor training to reflective supervision, evaluation requirements, mapping out the community resources, setting up the advisory board for HIPPY.

After the preservice training, trainees attend 4 webinars as opportunities to focus on questions. These webinars occur at the 2-week, 4-week, 6-week, and 8-week points after completing the annual preservice training. Each webinar lasts approximately 60 minutes.

Every new coordinator is assigned a national trainer. Program support is also offered during the first three years of implementation. 

“The national office provides support for program start-up, training, and technical assistance to sites, curriculum development/enhancement, national data collection, outreach, and advocacy and engages in collaboration with national and international partners.”

Contact Information

https://www.hippyus.org/ 

Carla Mowell: Director, Independent HIPPY Sites, HIPPY US; carla.mowell@gmail.com, 307-765-2164

Cost Estimates

Cost is dependent upon the number of children served, agency salaries, and other variables. For cost effectiveness, it is recommended that a program start by serving 80 families and grow to 180 by their third year.

A Sample Budget has been provided by the purveyor. Some items on the sample budget may already be provided by the agency (e.g. office space). Typically, the biggest expense is staff salaries.

Purpose Service Code (PSC)

5525 - Intensive Home Visiting

Program Identifier (PID)

Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY)

Minimal Outputs for NCPC Reporting

FY 24-25:

  • Number of parents/guardians participating† 

†Select Family Support Programs data collection will include basic demographic data for parent/guardian participants including Race, Ethnicity. Data on interpretation and transportation will be collected when appropriate.

Minimal Outcomes for NCPC Reporting

FY 24-25:

  • Increase in positive parenting practices

Minimal Measures for NCPC Reporting

FY 24-25:

  •  The Parenting Interaction with Children: Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcome (PICCOLO) for pre/post

NCPC Evidence Categorization

Evidence Informed- 2 non-experimental comparison group studies and 2 quasi-experimental studies.

Research Summary

While research has been conducted on HIPPY for many years, the following studies represent 4 recent publications. Nievar et al. (2018)1 analyzed school achievement test data to compare HIPPY students with non-HIPPY students. HIPPY students had higher reading scores in 3rd grade, all students dropped in 4th grade, but then went back up by the end of 5th grade. For math, HIPPY students had a higher average score during testing at all three grade levels. Brown et al. (2014)2 also found that HIPPY students scored higher in both subjects at every grade level compared and in Johnson et al. (2012)3 HIPPY students scored higher in math but not reading. In Brown et al. tests’ passing rates were in favor of the HIPPY students during 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th grades. HIPPY students had significantly higher attendance rates and experienced less grade retention for 5th, 7th, and 9th grades. Brown (2015)4 conducted a study comparing HIPPY kindergarten students born to teenage mothers to students without teenage mothers that did not participate in HIPPY. Analysis showed no significant differences between the HIPPY group with teenage mothers and the comparison control group. The author concluded that this may indicate that the HIPPY program helped to mediate academic readiness related disadvantages that children of teenage mothers may face. Johnson et al. results showed that HIPPY mothers increased their home involvement. HIPPY students were more likely to attend a prekindergarten program and 84% of HIPPY students were also rated as ready for kindergarten by their teachers. HIPPY participants also experience higher 1st grade promotion rates. 

  1. ^ See Nievar et al. (2018). This quasi-experimental study collected data from the HIPPY program in Texas and all but 1% of the population was a minority with 75% being Latino. HIPPY participants were in a lower socioeconomic bracket, as shown by needing free or reduced lunch, or Spanish must have been their first language. HIPPY participant’s scores were compared to students with comparable backgrounds but that were prekindergarten students (No HIPPY). The students’ reading and math scores on the standardized assessments in grades 3, 4 and 5 were collected for data. The reading drop in 4th grade may be explained by a change in curriculum focus for that school year across all schools.
  2. ^ See Brown & Lee (2014). This non-experimental comparison group study included racially diverse children that were considered to have a low socioeconomic status. HIPPY participants were matched with comparison students based on grade, gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Standardized test scores, attendance records, grade retention, and discipline referrals were collected for data. In addition to the outcomes listed above, there were no significant differences for discipline referrals at any grade level. However, the authors noticed a trend that HIPPY students experienced fewer multiple referrals.
  3. ^ See Johnson et al. (2012). This non-experimental comparison group study included, mostly Latino, families from larger communities that faced poverty and lower test scores, literacy, parental involvement, and English proficiency. HIPPY students were compared to students who did not participate in the program for analysis purposes. Researchers collected data on parent involvement through surveys and school outcomes, including readiness through surveys given to kindergarten teachers. Additional school outcome data was collected through school records. The low test scores in reading may be related to the fact that many HIPPY students speak Spanish in the home.  
  4. ^ See Brown (2015). This quasi-experimental study had 36 participants from large urban schools in Texas that had low socioeconomic status and were considered academically disadvantaged (English language learner or homeless). A majority of the participants were also Hispanic and most spoke Spanish in the home. Data was collected through the Kindergarten Readiness Survey that was filled out by the student’s teachers. It is possible that results are due to the small sample size, however the author is of the opinion that HIPPY effectively prepares children and their teenage parents to be ready for school, similar to traditional-aged mothers and their children.

Researched Population

  • Parents with children ages 2-5
  • Teen parents
  • Families from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds
  • Families who identified as low income

Clearinghouse and Compendium References

California Evidence Based Clearinghouse  rated “2 Supported by Research Evidence”

Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness-  rated Meets the criteria for “evidence-based early childhood home visiting service delivery model”

National Home Visiting Resource Center- rated Evidence-Based

Brown, A. L. (2015). The impact of early intervention on the school readiness of children born to teenage mothers. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 13(2), 181-195. https://www.doi.org/10.1177/1476718X13479048

Brown, A. & Lee, J. (2014). School performance in elementary, middle, and high school: A comparison of children based on HIPPY participating during the preschool years. School Community Journal, 24(2), 83-106. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1048627.pdf

Johnson, U. Y., Martinez-Cantu, V., Jacobson, A. L., & Weir, C. M. (2012). The Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters Program’s relationship with mother and school outcomes. Early Education and Development, 23, 713-727. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2011.596002

Nievar, A., Brown, A. L., Nathans, L., Chen, Q., & Martinez-Cantu, V. (2018). Home visiting among inner-city families: Links to early academic achievement. Early Education and Development, 29(8), 1115-1128. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2018.1506229



Local Partnerships Currently Implementing

Local Partnerships in purple have adopted Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY). Local Partnership contact information can be found here.