Two-Generational Child-Focused Program Enhanced with Employment Services: Eighteen-Month Impacts from the Kansas and Missouri Sites of the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project

From MDRC, this report discusses the implementation of an enhanced version of the Early Head Start (EHS) program. Authors provide an overview of challenges to implementation as well as short-term outcomes of the program on children and parents. Understanding that living in poverty can have profound effects on young children’s development and their prospects for the future, the enhanced EHS program was designed to provide formalized parental employment and educational services were implemented within EHS. This evaluation is part of the multi-site Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project, sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with additional funding from the U.S. Department of Labor.