It takes time: Impacts of Early Head Start that lead to reductions in maternal depression two years later.

The Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, a random-assignment evaluation, found a broad pattern of positive impacts for children and families. However, there were no program impacts on depression or use of mental health services by the time children reached age 3, at the end of the Early Head Start (EHS) program. This paper presents recent findings from the follow-up study in the spring prior to the children entering kindergarten, when a positive program impact emerged for reducing maternal depression. Results show that earlier program impacts on children and parents (when children were 2 and 3 years of age) mediated, or led to, the delayed impact on maternal depression. The combination of the most promising child factors accounted for over 57% of the later impact on depression, while the most promising parent factors accounted for over 35% of the later impact on depression. Implications for EHS programs are discussed.

[1]  J. Knitzer.  Promoting Resilience: Helping Young Children and Parents Affected by Substance Abuse, Domestic Violence, and Depression in the Context of Welfare Reform , 2000 .

[2]  C. Cutrona,et al.  Social support, infant temperament, and parenting self-efficacy: a mediational model of postpartum depression. , 1986, Child development.

[3]  J. Belsky,et al.  The determinants of parenting: a process model. , 1984, Child development.

[4]  A. Sameroff,et al.  Research strategies for capturing transactional models of development: The limits of the possible , 2003, Development and Psychopathology.

[5]  I. Gotlib,et al.  Risk for psychopathology in the children of depressed mothers: a developmental model for understanding mechanisms of transmission. , 1999, Psychological review.

[6]  N. Bayley.  Bayley Scales of Infant Development , 1999 .

[7]  L. Sheeber,et al.  Child behavior problems and maternal symptoms of depression: a mediational model. , 2004, Journal of child and adolescent psychiatric nursing : official publication of the Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nurses, Inc.

[8]  Robert H. Bradley,et al.  Home observation for measurement of the environment , 1979 .

[9]  M. Weissman,et al.  Children of currently depressed mothers: a STAR*D ancillary study. , 2006, The Journal of clinical psychiatry.

[10]  Isabela Granic,et al.  Toward a comprehensive model of antisocial development: a dynamic systems approach. , 2006, Psychological review.

[11]  P. McGrath,et al.  Mutual influences on maternal depression and child adjustment problems. , 2004, Clinical psychology review.

[12]  G. Patterson.  The early development of coercive family process. , 2002 .

[13]  Brian K Bumbarger,et al.  The Prevention of Mental Disorders in School-Aged Children: Current State of the Field , 2001 .

[14]  W. Beardslee,et al.  Mental health services: A family systems approach. , 2004 .

[15]  J. Montplaisir,et al.  The search for the age of 'onset' of physical aggression: Rousseau and Bandura revisited , 1999 .

[16]  R. R. Abidin.  Parenting Stress Index: Professional Manual . Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources , 1995 .

[17]  A. Sameroff,et al.  Infant mental health and variability of parental depression symptoms. , 2001, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[18]  Ronald G. Stansfield,et al.  Sociological Methodology 1982 , 1983 .

[19]  G. Patterson,et al.  Intraindividual growth in covert antisocial behaviour: a necessary precursor to chronic juvenile and adult arrests? , 1999 .

[20]  J. Brooks-Gunn,et al.  Cumulative familial risks and low-birthweight children's cognitive and behavioral development , 1994 .

[21]  J. Singer,et al.  Maternal correlates of growth in toddler vocabulary production in low-income families. , 2005, Child development.

[22]  C. Ross,et al.  Dividing work, sharing work, and in-between: marriage patterns and depression. , 1983, American sociological review.

[23]  Allison Sidle Fuligni,et al.  The Infant-Toddler HOME in the 2nd and 3rd Years of Life , 2004 .

[24]  J. Steven Reznick,et al.  Short-form versions of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories , 2000, Applied Psycholinguistics.

[25]  M. Weissman,et al.  Remissions in Maternal Depression and Child Psychopathology: A STAR*D-Child Report , 2006, JAMA.

[26]  I. Gotlib,et al.  Children of depressed parents : mechanisms of risk and implications for treatment , 2002 .

[27]  W. Beardslee,et al.  Children of affectively ill parents: a review of the past 10 years. , 1998, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[28]  D. Teti,et al.  Sources of Parenting Stress for Depressed and Nondepressed Mothers of Infants , 1992 .

[29]  M. Höfler,et al.  Parental major depression and the risk of depression and other mental disorders in offspring: a prospective-longitudinal community study. , 2002, Archives of general psychiatry.

[30]  B. Leadbeater,et al.  Investing in Children, Youth, Families, and Communities: Strengths-Based Research and Policy , 2003 .

[31]  Bonnie Knoke,et al.  The Effects of Infant Child Care on Infant-Mother Attachment Security: Results of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care NICHD Early Child Care Research Network. , 1997, Child development.