Early Head Start University Partnership Grants: Buffering Children from Toxic Stress

archived

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) announces the Early Head Start University Partnership Grants: Buffering Children from Toxic Stress. These grants fund research activities to implement promising parenting interventions which augment ongoing Early Head Start services, in order to improve outcomes for the most vulnerable infants and toddlers. The purpose of this announcement is to report the availability of grant projects to promote knowledge of how Early Head Start programs can buffer children from the effects of toxic stress by supporting parenting/caregiving. Grantees will be required to demonstrate a partnership or partnerships with Early Head Start programs as an integral part of the research plan development and execution. They will implement a promising parenting interventions model, augmenting existing Early Head Start services, for those children and families at the highest levels of stress. The evaluation component will include a validation of the selected risk factors as indicating a risk for toxic stress, an implementation study of the parenting intervention, as well as a rigorous test of the effectiveness of the intervention. While many caregiving relationships can provide buffering effects, the focus of this announcement is on the parental (or primary caregiver, foster parent, or guardian if biological parents are not available) relationship.

High