Starting Early Starting Smart (SESS)
provides an integrated system of child-centered, family focused, and community-based
services targeted to at-risk children from birth to age 7 at 12 sites across
the country. Rigorous evaluation has produced early findings that demonstrate
SESS programs:
• Increase access to and use
of needed services by participating families
• Help participating families
strengthen the ways in which they positively guide and support the development
of their young children
• Decrease drug use among caregivers
when programs target caregivers in need of substance use treatment
• Strengthen positive interaction
between participating caregivers and infants in the early months of life
• Strengthen the development
of young children in the program in ways that are crucial for future school
success.
The SESS demonstration has scientifically
validated successes that represent the intent of the programs. Access to crucial
areas of family and needed behavioral health services has been increased. The
well-being of families, and therefore their nurturing and supportive influences
on their youngest members, has grown stronger in important ways. And the infants,
toddlers, and children nurtured by these strengthened families, strengthened
classrooms, and the SESS programs have benefited in their early development.
SESS Sites
Five of the SESS programs are primary
care settings; seven are in early childhood education settings-five of these
are in Head Start programs, and two are in child care settings. They are located
in 10 States, and they include urban, suburban, and rural communities.
SESS Participants
SESS families are of diverse ethnic
and racial membership and represent a variety of personal circumstances. The
greatest majority of participant families are African-American, representing
45.1 percent of the total families currently enrolled in SESS programs. Seventeen
(17) percent of families are Caucasian, 13.7 percent are Hispanic, 11.4 percent
are multiracial, and 7.6 percent are Asian/Pacific Islander. Just over 5 percent
are Native American or other background.
The personal circumstances of participant
families vary. Approximately 40 percent have less than 12 years of schoolroom
education (compared to 16 percent nationally). Just over half are single parents
(compared to 25 percent nationally). Neither parent is employed in 13.9 percent
of families (compared to the 3-5 percent national unemployment rate). As a group,
these families are disadvantaged with respect to service access. For example,
over 29 percent of the SESS caregivers had no health insurance, compared to
18 percent of the American adult population. Additionally, other barriers are
present at SESS sites including poor transportation resources, language barriers,
uncertainty about legal status, and pressures from multiple jobs as well as
very low-income status.
As the study continues, SESS will
report findings from many more analyses to examine site variation and similarity,
combinations of program characteristics or services that are linked with specific
outcomes, and longitudinal outcome findings.
For the full 24-page "SESS
Summary of Early Findings," go to http://ncadi.samhsa.gov/
or call (800) 729-6686 for a free copy.
Early findings that demonstrate
SESS programs:
•Increase access to and use
of needed services by participating families
•Decrease drug use among caregivers when programs target caregivers in
need of substance use treatment
•Help participating families
strengthen the ways in which they positively guide and support the development
of their young children
•Strengthen positive interaction
between participating caregivers and infants in the early months of life
•Strengthen the development
of young children in the program in ways that are crucial for future school
success.
Selected Illustrative Data
The SESS Program and evaluation study is sponsored by an innovative public-private
collaboration between the Federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration (SAMHSA) and Casey Family Programs.
Casey Family Programs 1300 Dexter Avenue, North
Seattle, WA 98109
Washington,
DC Office 1808 Eye Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006 voice (202) 467-4441 fax (202) 467-4499
Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration 5600 Fishers Lane
Rockwall II, Room 950
Rockville, MD 20857 voice (301) 443-7762 fax (301) 443-7878
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