Impact Evaluation of the Nurturing Parenting Program Nurturing Skills for Families

Following a recent statewide implementation of NPP as part of redesigning services to align with the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA), the Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS) partnered with Mathematica to evaluate the program’s effectiveness in improving children’s welfare outcomes. Parent education programs such as NPP are intended to improve parent, child, and family outcomes. Such programs are common in the United States, with about 800,000 families participating each year through child welfare agencies. However, relatively few programs have been rigorously evaluated for their effectiveness in improving child welfare outcomes.

The evaluation used a quasi-experimental design to compare the safety and permanency outcomes of children whose families were referred to NPP to those of children who were referred to a broad range of other family preservation services.

Research questions

1. What are the impacts of referrals to NPP on child safety and child permanency immediately after, six months after, and twelve months after the end of the program?
2. What are the impacts of completing NPP on child safety and child permanency at each of the same three time points?
3. How do the impacts of referrals to NPP and completing NPP vary for key subgroups of the program’s intended population, by age, gender, race and ethnicity, program provider, and level of service?