Factors Associated With Service Referrals and Uptake in Early Head Start: The Importance of Care Setting.
Russell A Carleton, Ann M DiGirolamo, Lisa McGarrie and 2 others
PMID 38495647WHAT IT FOUND
Families in home-based Early Head Start programs were far more likely to receive behavioral health referrals than those in center-based care.
Families with identified risk events were actually less likely to receive these referrals, though they were more likely to receive entitlement services.
Key findings
01Families in center-based Early Head Start programs were much less likely to receive a referral to behavioral health programs than those in home-based services.
02Respondents with at least one family risk event were significantly less likely to receive a referral to any behavioral health program than those with no risk events.
03Families with at least one risk event were more likely to receive a referral to entitlement services than those with no identified risk events.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study used cross-sectional data, so it cannot determine causality. Reliance on retrospective reporting may introduce bias. The dataset did not report on the receipt of services from behavioral health resources, only referrals. The measure of family risk events was not a standardized assessment, limiting comparison with other studies.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that families with higher trauma risk are automatically receiving appropriate behavioral health support. The study found they were actually less likely to receive these referrals than families with no identified risk events.