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The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is a major source of information on Head Start programs and the children and families they serve. Since 1997, FACES has conducted studies in a nationally representative sample of Head Start programs, but has historically not included Region XI (programs operated by federally-recognized tribes), whose programs are designed to serve predominantly American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children and families. The American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey 2015 (AI/AN FACES 2015), the first national study of Region XI AI/AN Head Start children and families, is designed to fill this information gap.

The design of AI/AN FACES 2015 has been informed by members of the AI/AN FACES 2015 Workgroup which includes tribal Head Start directors, researchers with expertise working with tribal communities, Mathematica Policy Research study staff, and federal officials from the Office of Head Start, Region XI, and the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. Building on FACES as the foundation, members of the AI/AN FACES 2015 Workgroup have shared insights and information on the kinds of information needed about children and families served by Region XI AI/AN Head Start programs (including children's development and school readiness, parent and family demographics, health, and program engagement, and teacher, classroom, and program characteristics). Members also provided input on recruitment practices and study methods that are responsive to the unique cultural and self-governing contexts of tribal Head Start programs.

Data collection with Region XI children, families, classrooms, and programs took place in the Fall of 2015 and the Spring of 2016. Twenty-one Region XI Head Start programs participated. Procedures for tribal review and approval in each of those 21 communities were followed. Information about this study has been shared broadly with tribal Head Start programs and tribal leaders via OHS tribal consultations, nationally-broadcast webinars, National Indian Head Start Directors' Association Board of Directors (NIHSDA) annual conferences, the 2016 ACF National Research Conference on Early Childhood, and the Secretary's Tribal Advisory Council (STAC) December 2014 and 2016 meetings.

The Americans' Changing Lives (ACL) survey series is an ongoing, nationally representative, longitudinal study focusing especially on differences between Black and White Americans in middle and late life. These data constitute the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth waves in a panel survey covering a wide range of sociological, psychological, mental, and physical health items. Wave I of the study began in 1986 with a nation face-to-face survey of 3,617 adults ages 25 and up, with Black Americans and people aged 60 and over over-sampled at twice the rate of the others. Wave II constitutes face-to-face re-interviews in 1989 of those still alive. Survivors have been re-interviewed by telephone, and when necessary face-to-face, in 1994 (Wave III), 2001/02 (Wave IV), 2011 (Wave V), and 2019/21 (Wave VI).

Please note that for Wave VI, the majority of data collection occurred in 2019, with only a small subset (n=39) of participants surveyed in 2021.

ACL was designed and sought to investigate the following: (1) The ways in which a wide range of activities and social relationships that people engage in are broadly "productive," (2) how individuals adapt to acute life events and chronic stresses that threaten the maintenance of health, effective functioning, and productive activity, and (3) sociocultural variations in the nature, meaning, determinants, and consequences of productive activity and relationships. Among the topics covered are interpersonal relationships (spouse/partner, children, parents, friends), sources and levels of satisfaction, social interactions and leisure activities, traumatic life events (physical assault, serious illness, divorce, death of a loved one, financial or legal problems), perceptions of retirement, health behaviors (smoking, alcohol consumption, overweight, rest), and utilization of health care services (doctor visits, hospitalization, nursing home institutionalization, bed days). Also included are measures of physical health, psychological well-being, and indices referring to cognitive functioning.

Demographic information provided for individuals includes household composition, number of children and grandchildren, employment status, occupation and work history, income, family financial situation, religious beliefs and practices, ethnicity, race, education, sex, and region of residence.

Trajectory modeling can identify patterns of posttraumatic stress symptoms in children and parents. This study aimed to describe trajectories of child and parent posttraumatic stress symptoms across 2 years post-injury, and to examine potential risk factors predicting problematic trajectories. The study enrolled children age 7 to 16 admitted to general or intensive care units for treatment of accidental injury, and one parent/caregiver per child. Within 2 weeks of injury, and at 4-6 weeks, 6 months, and (a subset) at 2 years post-injury, children and parents were assessed for posttraumatic stress symptoms. Parents also completed measures of parenting behavior and pre-injury child mental health.

This study prospectively assessed psychological and cognitive sequelae of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in children. Multiple factors may influence children's functioning following head injury including injury severity, pre-injury child factors, and family factors. Overall study aims were to describe the relationships between these factors and children's recovery in the eighteen months following their injury, to examine the relationship between children's cognitive impairments post injury and psychological distress related to the injury event, and to examine the role of PTSD in children's recovery from TBI.

The study enrolled children age 6 to 15 admitted to hospital after an accident resulting in mild to severe TBI, and one parent per child. Children and parents completed research assessments within 2 months of the accident, and at 3, 6, 12, and 18 months post-accident. Child health and behavior, health-related quality of life, parenting, and parent posttraumatic stress were assessed at all time points, and child posttraumatic stress symptoms were assessed at 3, 6, 12, and 18 months.

The overall objective of this study was to examine trajectories and predictors of posttraumatic stress and depression in children and parents after a major hurricane, with a particular focus on hurricane exposure and on parenting variables that might be amenable to intervention.

Three months after the hurricane, the study enrolled students in grades four through eight (age 8 to 16) in local schools and invited parent participation, and conducted assessments at four time points post-hurricane. Children reported on prior violence exposure and hurricane-related trauma exposure, and on posttraumatic stress, coping, social support; and parents reported on child behavior as well as their own posttraumatic stress and other mental health symptoms, coping, and parenting practices. (Note: The current dataset does not include measures of parenting practices.)

Early Head Start (EHS) programs are comprehensive, two-generation programs that focus on enhancing children's development while strengthening families. Designed for low-income pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers up to age 3, Early Head Start programs strive to achieve their goals by designing program options based on family and community needs. Programs may offer one or more options to families, including a home-based option, a center-based option, a combination option in which families receive a prescribed number of home visits and center-based experiences, and locally designed options, which in some communities include family child care.

The Early Head Start Research and Evaluation (EHSRE) Study was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) and included five major components: (1) an implementation study; (2) an impact evaluation, using an experimental design; (3) local research studies to learn about pathways to desired outcomes; (4) policy studies to respond to information needs in areas of emerging policy-relevant issues; and (5) continuous program improvement. The study involved 3,001 children and families in 17 sites representing diverse program models, racial/ethnic makeup, urban-rural location, program auspice, and program experience in serving infants and toddlers. Three phases comprise the collection: Birth to Three ("0-3"), Pre-Kindergarten ("PreK") Follow-up and the Elementary School ("G5") Follow-up. A brief description of each phase is provided below:

• Birth to Three Phase (1996-2001): included a cross-site national study that encompassed an Impact Evaluation and Implementation Study that investigated program impacts on children and families through their time in the program as well as site-specific research conducted by local research projects.
• Pre-Kindergarten Follow-up Phase (2001-2005) : built upon the earlier research and followed the children and families who were in the original study from the time they left the Early Head Start program until they entered kindergarten. It was designed to document the long-term consequences of receiving either Early Head Start services or other community services up until age 3 combined with subsequent Head Start or other formal early care and education programs on children's school readiness and parent functioning.
• Elementary School Follow-up Phase (2005-2010): assessed children and families when the children were fifth graders or attending their sixth year of formal schooling. The study included direct assessments of children's cognitive, socio-emotional, and physical development; parent interviews; teacher questionnaires; and videotaping of maternal-child interactions.

The Early Head Start findings are based on a mixture of direct child assessments, observations of children's behavior by in-person interviewers, ratings of videotaped parent-child interactions in standardized ways, ratings of children's behaviors by their parents, and parents' self-reports of their own behaviors, attitudes, and circumstances. Data in this collection were constructed by the Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) researchers for use in their analyses. Very few of the original source variables are present in this public-use file. The constructs came from several data sources:

1. Baseline data, which were collected from the Head Start Family Information System (HSFIS) program application and enrollment forms and the MPR Tracking System. These data contain information on the program status of each case, characteristics of the applicant, mother, and focus child from the MPR Tracking System, summary variables pertaining to all family members, and information on the father, on family circumstances, on the mother's pregnancy, and on the focus child.

2. Parent services follow-up interviews (PSI) targeted for 6, 15, and 26 months after random assignment. These data contain information on use of services both in and outside of Early Head Start, progress toward economic self-sufficiency, family health, and children's health.

3. Parent interviews (BPI) targeted for completion when children were 14, 24, and 36 months old. These interviews obtained a large amount of information from the primary caregivers about their child's development and family functioning. Specific questions asked of parents in the parent interview included items about raising a baby, child's health, household composition, child care, mother figure, father figure, family routines, parents' and parent-child activities, child behavior, and stressful events.

4. Child and family assessments targeted for administration when children were 14, 24, and 36 months old. Field interviewers recorded information from their observations of children's behavior and home environments. Direct child assessments included Bayley Assessments, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Tests (PPVTs), and videotaped semi-structured parent-child interactions.

5. Child care provider interviews and observations targeted for administration when children were 14, 24, and 36 months old. Interview and observation data were collected from child care providers for children who were in child care arrangements that met particular criteria when they were approximately 14, 24 and 36 months old. Different data collection instruments were used for children in child care centers and children cared for by family child care providers or relatives. Data from both types of providers may be used together for some types of analyses.

6. Father interviews targeted for collection when children were 24 and 36 months old. In addition to asking mothers about their child's father, biological fathers and father figures in 12 sites were interviewed directly about fathering issues at the time of the 24- and 36-month birthday-related interviews (but not when children were 14 months old).

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is an ongoing national longitudinal study of the cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development of Head Start children. It examines the characteristics, well-being, and accomplishments of families, the observed quality of Head Start classrooms, and the characteristics and opinions of Head Start teachers and other program staff. FACES was designed to address four central questions related to program performance objectives:

1. Does Head Start enhance children's development and school readiness?
2. Does Head Start strengthen families as the primary nurturers of their children?
3. Does Head Start provide children with high quality educational, health, and nutritional services?
4. How is classroom quality related to child outcomes?

The FACES 1997 Cohort involved a nationally representative sample of children and families in Head Start programs in the United States who were studied at entry into the program in the fall of 1997, assessed in the spring at the completion of one or two years of Head Start, and followed up in the spring of the kindergarten and first grade years. During these visits, the research team completed individual interviews with staff and parents, child and classroom observations, direct child assessments through one-on-one interviews, and indirect assessments of children by their teachers and parents.

The data collection instruments used in FACES were designed to measure several different types of skills, accomplishments, and behaviors that are relevant to a child's school readiness and social competence:

1. The parent interview was designed to collect up-to-date information about current Head Start families while being sensitive to differences based on the background of the respondents. The interview provided descriptive information about the parents (education, work status, health, nativity, depression, social support, use of discipline and rules, exposure to violence), the household (income, housing, activities with children, use of child care), and the children (gender, ethnicity, health, behavior, literacy skills, disabilities, exposure to violence). Additionally, parents reported how their families came to Head Start and how they perceived their Head Start experiences.
2. The staff interview was designed to provide a profile of the background, qualifications, and training of Head start personnel as well as an understanding of classroom activities, family activities, services, local programs offered to families, and staff perspectives on their programs and the families they served.
3. The child and classroom observations were designed to record information from the observations of children's behavior and home environments. Some of the assessments used included Peabody Picture Vocabulary Tests (PPVTs), Woodcock-Johnson Revised Tests of Achievement, Norm Referenced Cognitive Tests, Story and Print Concepts, and McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities.

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is an ongoing national longitudinal study of the cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development of Head Start children. It examines the characteristics, well-being, and accomplishments of families, the observed quality of Head Start classrooms, and the characteristics and opinions of Head Start teachers and other program staff. FACES was designed to address four central questions related to program performance objectives:

1. Does Head Start enhance children's development and school readiness?
2. Does Head Start strengthen families as the primary nurturers of their children?
3. Does head Start provide children with high quality educational, health, and nutritional services?
4. How is classroom quality related to child outcomes?

The FACES 2000 Cohort involved a nationally representative sample of children and families in Head Start programs in the United States who were studied at entry into the program in the fall of 2000, assessed at the completion of one or two years of program experience, and followed up in the spring of the kindergarten year. The FACES 2000-2003 battery has four main components: the child assessment, parent interview, teacher and staff interviews, and classroom observations.

1. The child assessments included the major components of school readiness, and were collected through direct child assessments and rating scales completed by parents and teachers. Direct child assessments included the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Third Edition-Revised (PPVT-III), Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised, McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities, story and print concepts, social awareness, color names and one-to-one counting, Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised, interview ratings, and follow-up Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten (ECLS-K) measures.

2. The parent interview was designed to provide Head Start with a comprehensive understanding of the families that they serve, including the characteristics of households and household members, levels and types of participation in the program and in other community services, involvement with their children, and an understanding of their children's development. In addition to this, parents were asked to rate each child on a set of behaviors that assessed the child's basic social skills and behavior problems.

3. The teacher and staff interview was designed to provide information on Head Start personnel experience, education, and training as well as knowledge and beliefs about child development, and educational activities with children and parents.

4. The classroom observations were designed to measure peer interactions, friendships of children, and the extent to which Head Start programs employed skilled teachers and provided developmentally appropriate environments and curricula for their children. Some of the assessments used included the Assessment Profile, Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R), classroom observation of teacher-directed activities, and the Arnett Caregiver Interaction Scale.

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is an ongoing national longitudinal study of the cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development of Head Start children. It examines the characteristics, well-being, and accomplishments of families, the observed quality of Head Start classrooms, and the characteristics and opinions of Head Start teachers and other program staff. FACES was designed to address four central questions related to program performance objectives:

1. Does Head Start enhance children's development and school readiness?
2. Does Head Start strengthen families as the primary nurturers of their children?
3. Does head Start provide children with high quality educational, health, and nutritional services?
4. How is classroom quality related to child outcomes?

The FACES 2003 Cohort involved a nationally representative sample of children and families in Head Start programs in the United States who were studied at entry into the program in the fall of 2003, assessed at the completion of their program experience, and followed up at the end of their kindergarten year. The FACES 2003 battery has five main components: the child assessment, parent interview, teacher and staff interviews, classroom observations and teacher-child reports.

1. The child assessments included the major components of school readiness, and were collected through direct child assessments and rating scales completed by parents and teachers. Some of the direct child assessments included the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Third Edition-Revised (PPVT-III), Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised, McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities, story and print concepts, social awareness, color names and one-to-one counting and assessor ratings.

2. The parent interview was designed to provide Head Start with a comprehensive understanding of the families that they serve, including the characteristics of households and household members, levels and types of participation in the program and in other community services, involvement with their children, and an understanding of their children's development. In addition to this, parents were asked to rate each child on a set of behaviors that assessed the child's basic social skills and behavior problems.

3. The teacher and staff interview was designed to provide information on Head Start personnel experience, education, and training as well as knowledge and beliefs about child development, and educational activities with children and parents.

4. The classroom observations were designed to measure peer interactions, friendships of children, and the extent to which Head Start programs employed skilled teachers and provided developmentally appropriate environments and curricula for their children. Some of the assessments used included the Assessment Profile, Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R), classroom observation of teacher-directed activities, and the Arnett Caregiver Interaction Scale.

5. The teacher-child report was designed to capture important sources of information about children's learning and behavior through the use of the Teacher-Child Report (TCR), social skills ratings, the Behavior Problems scale and the Preschool Learning Behavior Scale (PLBS).

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is a periodic, ongoing longitudinal study of program performance. Successive nationally representative samples of Head Start children, their families, classrooms, and programs provide descriptive information on the population of children and families served; staff qualifications, credentials, and opinions; Head Start classroom practices and quality measures; and child and family outcomes. FACES includes a battery of child assessments across multiple developmental domains (cognitive, social, emotional, and physical).

For nearly a decade, the Office of Head Start, the Administration for Children and Families, other federal agencies, local programs, and the public have depended on FACES for valid and reliable national information on (1) the skills and abilities of Head Start children, (2) how Head Start children's skills and abilities compare with preschool children nationally, (3) Head Start children's readiness for and subsequent performance in kindergarten, and (4) the characteristics of the children's home and classroom environments. The FACES study is designed to enable researchers to answer a wide range of research questions that are crucial for aiding program managers and policymakers. Some of the questions that are central to FACES include:

1. What are the demographic characteristics of the population of children and families served by Head Start? How has the population served by Head Start changed?
2. What are the experiences of families and children in the Head Start program? How have they changed?
3. What are the cognitive and social skills of Head Start children at the beginning and end of their first year in the program? Has Head Start program performance improved over time?
4. Do the gains in cognitive and social skills that Head Start children achieve carry over into kindergarten? Do larger gains (or greater declines in problem behavior) translate into higher achievement at the end of kindergarten?
5. What are the qualifications of Head Start teachers in terms of education, experience, and credentials? Are average teacher education levels rising in Head Start?
6. What is the observed quality of Head Start classrooms as early learning environments, including the level and range of teaching and interactions, provisions for learning, emotional and instructional support, and classroom organization? How has quality changed over time? What program- and classroom-level factors are related to observed classroom quality? How is observed quality related to children's outcomes and developmental gains?

FACES also supports analyses of subgroups of interest, such as children with disabilities, dual language learners, and children who are performing above or below average on standardized assessments. Its design changes in response to emerging policy and research questions. For example, in response to the growing concern about childhood obesity, measures of children's height and weight were introduced in FACES 2006.

Measures for FACES 2006 were selected to balance the need to support comparisons to previous cohorts of FACES (particularly with respect to program performance measures) against the need to update the measurement battery and address emerging policy issues and benefits from progress in the assessment field. Many of the measures used in FACES 2006 were included in previous cohorts and they are presented below by the five major measurement sources in FACES: (1) child direct assessments; (2) parent interviews; (3) teacher interviews and survey; (4) classroom observations; and (5) program director, center director, and education coordinator interviews.

1. The child direct assessments included the major components of school readiness. They included a language screener, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Fourth Edition/Test de Vocabulario de Imagines Peabody, subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement Third Edition/Bateria III Woodcock-Munoz (letter word identification, applied problems, spelling, and word attack), a measure of early math literacy based on items from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth and Kindergarten Cohorts math assessments (geometry, patterns, and measurement), story and print concepts, and physical measurements (height and weight). At the end of the direct child assessment, interviewers rate the child's attention, organization/impulse control, activity level, and sociability using items from the Leiter-R scales.
2. The parent interview was designed to provide Head Start with a comprehensive understanding of the families that they serve, including the demographic characteristics of households and household members, parent-child relationships and the quality of the child's home life, and parent ratings of the child's behavior problems, social skills, and competencies, levels and types of participation in the program and in other community services.
3. The Head Start teacher interview was designed to collect information about classroom and teacher characteristics related to the quality of care provided by Head Start programs. Teachers were asked about their classroom activities and use of curricula, as well as their demographic and educational background and professional experience. They also used a Web survey to rate the social skills, problem behaviors, and competencies of each FACES child in their classroom. Kindergarten teachers provided information about schools attended by Head Start children, their classrooms and school experiences using a Web survey. They also completed ratings of each FACES child's social skills, behavior problems and competencies.
4. The classroom observations were designed to measure peer interactions and the extent to which Head Start programs employed skilled teachers and provided developmentally appropriate environments and curricula for their children. The measures used included the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R), the Arnett Scale of Lead Teacher Behavior, and the Instructional Support scale from the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). Counts of children and adults were also taken to calculate group size and child-adult ratios.
5. The Program Director, Center Director, and Education Coordinator Interviews gathered information about staffing and recruitment, teacher education initiatives and training, waiting lists and program expansion, classroom activities, curriculum, overview of program management, and parent involvement.

The User Guide provides detailed information about the FACES 2006 study design, execution, and data to inform and assist researchers who may be interested in using the data for future analyses. The following items are provided in the User Guide as appendices.

• Appendix A -- Copyright Statements
• Appendix B -- Instrument Content Matrices
• Appendix C -- Questionnaires
• Appendix D -- Center/Program Codebook
• Appendix E -- Classroom/Teacher Codebook
• Appendix F -- Child Codebook
• Appendix G -- Description of Constructed/Derived Variables

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is a periodic, ongoing longitudinal study of program performance. Successive nationally representative samples of Head Start children, their families, classrooms, and programs provide descriptive information on the population of children and families served; staff qualifications, credentials, and opinions; Head Start classroom practices and quality measures; and child and family outcomes. FACES includes a battery of child assessments across multiple developmental domains (cognitive, social, emotional, and physical). FACES 2009 is the latest FACES cohort study and followed children from Head Start entry in fall 2009 through one or two years of program participation and to kindergarten.

For nearly a decade, the Office of Head Start, the Administration for Children and Families, other federal agencies, local programs, and the public have depended on FACES for valid and reliable national information on (1) the skills and abilities of Head Start children, (2) how Head Start children's skills and abilities compare with preschool children nationally, (3) Head Start children's readiness for and subsequent performance in kindergarten, and (4) the characteristics of the children's home and classroom environments. The FACES study is designed to enable researchers to answer a wide range of research questions that are crucial for aiding program managers and policymakers. Some of the questions that are central to FACES include:

1. What are the demographic characteristics of the population of children and families served by Head Start? How has the population served by Head Start changed?
2. What are the experiences of families and children in the Head Start program? How have they changed?
3. What are the cognitive and social skills of Head Start children at the beginning and end of their first year in the program? Has Head Start program performance improved over time?
4. Do the gains in cognitive and social skills that Head Start children achieve carry over into kindergarten? Do larger gains (or greater declines in problem behavior) translate into higher achievement at the end of kindergarten?
5. What are the qualifications of Head Start teachers in terms of education, experience, and credentials? Are average teacher education levels rising in Head Start?
6. What is the observed quality of Head Start classrooms as early learning environments, including the level and range of teaching and interactions, provisions for learning, emotional and instructional support, and classroom organization? How has quality changed over time? What program- and classroom-level factors are related to observed classroom quality? How is observed quality related to children's outcomes and developmental gains?

In response to recent trends and mandates, FACES 2009 expanded the information collected on families and children who speak a primary language other than English and the information collected on children who are homeless. Earlier cohorts of FACES gathered information on the languages spoken in the home and used for classroom instruction. Given the growth in the population of Hispanic/Latino preschoolers (Hernandez 2006), FACES 2009 placed additional emphasis on Dual Language Learners (DLLs). In addition, given the 2007 Head Start Act's focus on children and families who are homeless, FACES 2009 expanded coverage on the enrollment of such children, how the program ensures that they enroll in Head Start, and the special services available to such children and their families.

FACES 2009 carefully balanced the need for consistent measurement of outcomes against the need for improvements in instrumentation and techniques. In some instances, new instruments were added to obtain more comprehensive information on Head Start children. For example, the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test was added to assess children's expressive language, which is related to later reading achievement even more so than receptive language (National Early Literacy Panel 2008). A measure of phonemic awareness from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) preschool wave was also added to assess children's knowledge of beginning and ending sounds in words. Further, FACES 2009 included a direct assessment of executive functioning-a pencil tapping task to examine children's inhibitory control, working memory, and attention-which has been shown to relate to young children's development in mathematics, vocabulary, and literacy (Blair and Razza 2007; Espy et al. 2004; McClelland et al. 2007).

The User Guide provides detailed information about the FACES 2009 study design, execution, and data to inform and assist researchers who may be interested in using the data for future analyses. The following items are provided in the User Guide as appendices.

• Appendix A - Copyright statements
• Appendix B - Instrument Content Matrices
• Appendix C - Questionnaires
• Appendix D - Center/Program Codebook
• Appendix E - Classroom/Teacher Codebook
• Appendix F - Child Codebook
• Appendix G - Description of Constructed/Derived Variables

The 2014 Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, or FACES 2014, is the sixth in a series of national studies of Head Start, with earlier studies conducted in 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006, and 2009. FACES 2014 used a new study design that differs from earlier rounds of FACES in several important ways: (1) it included larger program and classroom samples, (2) all data were collected in a single program year, (3) the baseline sample of children included both children enrolled in their first and second year of Head Start, and (4) several special studies were conducted along with the main (Classroom + Child Outcomes Core and Classroom Core) study to collect more detailed information about a given topic, to study new populations of Head Start programs and participants, and to evaluate measures for possible use in future rounds of FACES. For example, the Family Engagement Plus study collected information from parents and staff (teachers and family services staff) on family engagement efforts and service provision in Head Start programs.

The FACES 2014 Family Engagement Plus study took place in spring 2015 within the 60 programs that participated in the child-level data collection in the Classroom + Child Outcomes Core study. This Plus study describes family engagement practices in Head Start from the perspectives of parents and Head Start staff. It examines how practices align with the Head Start Parent, Family, and Community Engagement (PFCE) Framework and targeted family outcomes. It also explores how programs engage with community partners to provide comprehensive services to families and how parents and staff characterize their relationships with one another. It includes semi-structured interviews with parents and family services staff (FSS) as well as supplemental content added to the Core parent and teacher surveys. This release includes open-ended qualitative data from the semi-structured interviews included in the Family Engagement Plus study.

The primary research questions for the Family Engagement Plus study are as follows:

1. What do family engagement efforts look like in Head Start?
2. How are families engaged in Head Start and in their children's learning and development at home and in the community?
3. What staff are involved in family engagement efforts, and in what ways are they involved in those efforts?
4. How are comprehensive family services provided in Head Start?
5. How do parents and staff characterize their relationships and interactions with one another?
6. How do family engagement efforts and service provisions align with the Head Start Parent, Family, and Community Engagement (PFCE) Framework?

The User's Manual provides detailed information about the Family Engagement Plus study design, execution, and data to inform and assist researchers who may be interested in using the data for future analyses or pairing the Family Engagement qualitative data collection sources with other FACES 2014 sources.

The 2014 Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, or FACES 2014, is the sixth in a series of national studies of Head Start, with earlier studies conducted in 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006, and 2009. This release includes nationally representative samples of Head Start programs and centers, classrooms, children and their families through spring of 2017. Data from surveys of Head Start program and center directors, classroom teachers, and parents provided descriptive information about program policies and practices, classroom activities, and the background and experiences of Head Start staff and families. Classroom observations were used to assess the quality of Head Start classrooms. Children in the study participated in a direct assessment that provided a picture of their school readiness skills at different time points.

FACES 2014 used a new study design that differs from earlier rounds of FACES in several important ways: (1) it included larger program and classroom samples, (2) all data were collected in a single program year, (3) the baseline sample of children included both children enrolled in their first and second year of Head Start, and (4) several special studies were conducted along with the main (Core) study to collect more detailed information about a given topic, to study new populations of Head Start programs and participants, and to evaluate measures for possible use in future rounds of FACES. For example, the Family Engagement Plus study collected information from parents and staff (teachers and family services staff) on family engagement efforts and service provision in Head Start programs.

The Office of Head Start, the Administration for Children and Families, other federal agencies, local programs, and the public have depended on FACES for valid and reliable national information on (1) the skills and abilities of Head Start children, (2) how Head Start children's skills and abilities compare with preschool children nationally, (3) Head Start children's readiness for and subsequent performance in kindergarten, and (4) the characteristics of the children's home and classroom environments. The FACES study was designed to enable researchers to answer a wide range of research questions that are crucial for aiding program managers and policymakers. Some of the questions that are central to FACES include:

1. What are the demographic characteristics of the population of children and families served by Head Start? How has the population served by Head Start changed?
2. What are the experiences of families and children in the Head Start program? How have they changed?
3. What are the cognitive and social skills of Head Start children at the beginning and end of the program year? Has Head Start program performance improved over time?
4. What are the qualifications of Head Start teachers in terms of education, experience, and credentials? Are average teacher education levels rising in Head Start?
5. What is the observed quality of Head Start classrooms as early learning environments, including the level and range of teaching and interactions, provisions for learning, emotional and instructional support, and classroom organization? How has quality changed over time?
6. What program- and classroom-level factors are related to observed classroom quality?
7. How is observed quality related to children's outcomes and developmental gains?

The User Guide provides detailed information about the FACES 2014 study design, execution, and data to inform and assist researchers who may be interested in using the data for future analyses. The following items are provided in the User Guide as appendices.

• Appendix A - Elements Of The FACES Design And Key Measures Used (And Child Outcomes Captured): FACES 1997 - FACES 2014
• Appendix B - Copyright Permissions
• Appendix C - Instrument Content Matrices
• Appendix D - Instruments
• Appendix E - Spring 2015 Center/Program Codebook
• Appendix F - Spring 2015 Classroom/Teacher Codebook
• Appendix G - 2014-2015 Child Codebook
• Appendix H - Spring 2015 Family Engagement Family Service Staff Interview Codebook
• Appendix I - Spring 2015 Family Engagement Parent Interview Codebook
• Appendix J - Spring 2017 Center/Program Codebook
• Appendix K - Spring 2017 Classroom/Teacher Codebook
• Appendix L - Descriptions of Constructed/Derived Variables
• Appendix M - Synthetic Estimation for Child Growth Across Two Years

The Healthy Steps for Young Children program began in 1995 as a new approach to primary health care for young children, birth to age three. The program is intended to enhance early pediatric care by incorporating preventive developmental and behavioral services as part of a comprehensive, whole-child, whole-family model of health care and to help provide mothers and fathers with the childrearing information and guidance they seek.

The evaluation of Healthy Steps consisted of three components: the National Evaluation, the Affiliate Evaluation, and the Embedded Observational Study. All data contained in these public release data sets come from the National Evaluation. For additional information on the Affiliate Evaluation or the Embedded Observational Study, please visit http://www.jhsph.edu/WCHPC_/Projects/Healthy_Steps/index.html.

These data were gathered to assess whether the Healthy Steps program was successful in reorienting pediatric practice to emphasize child development issues in increasing parents' knowledge about early nurturing of infants and parents' involvement in their children's development and in promoting parents' practices that improve the health, safety, and health care utilization of their children.

The data are organized as follows:

• Parent Forms: Newborn

  The newborn form was used to gather data on the baby's characteristics, demographic characteristics of the mother, father, and family, prenatal utilization of services, health behaviors of the mother and father, and parents' decisions about a pediatric provider for their newborn.

• Parent Forms: 6 Month

  The 6 month form was used to gather information on selected family demographic characteristics, child's health, parenting practices, and health behaviors of the mother and father. Questions included the frequency of injuries, emergency department visits, and hospitalization in the past 6 months, use of safety devices, activities that promote learning and development, sources of information on speech development, child care arrangements, smoking practices, and mother's receipt of postpartum care.

• Parent Forms: 12 Month

  Like the 6 month form, the 12 month form was used to gather information on selected family demographic characteristics, child's health, parenting practices, and health behaviors of the mother and father. Questions included the frequency of injuries, emergency department visits, and hospitalization in the past 12 months, use of safety devices, activities that promote learning and development, sources of information on speech development, child care arrangements, smoking practices, and mother's receipt of postpartum care.

• Medical Record Abstraction: Vaccinations

  This file contains demographic and vaccination data, including gender, race/ethnicity, and insurance provider.

• Medical Record Abstraction: Medical Visits

  This file contains data abstracted from forms completed for every visit recorded in the medical record or other primary care files, including type visit and whether a physical assessment was conducted.

• Medical Record Abstraction: Referrals/Consultations

  These data are limited to information on any referrals or consultations noted in the child's medical record or other primary care files, including type of and reason for the referral.

• Medical Record Abstraction: Hospitalizations/ED Visits

  These data are limited to information on any hospitalization, emergency department visit, or urgent care visit recorded in the child's medical record or other primary care files, including the type of and reason for the visit.

• Healthy Steps Specialist Contact Logs

  Data contained in this file represent every interaction between Healthy Steps Specialists and the family, including home visits, office visits, telephone calls to or from the family, parent groups, mailings, and other types of contacts, such as hospital visits. Information collected on each contact included the date of contact, type of contact, person contacted, status of the contact, reason for the contact, whether a handout was given out or a referral made during the contact, the issues/ problems discussed during the contact, and any action taken by the Healthy Steps Specialist.

• Parent Interviews: 2-4 Month

  The 2-4 month interview included questions about the respondent's knowledge of child development, his/her sense of competence about childrearing, his/her perception of support for childrearing activities from both formal and informal sources, and his/her engagement in activities with the child that promote health, learning, and development. The interview also gathered information on the socio- demographic characteristics of the family, including the mother's and father's education, marital status, employment, income, and household composition.

• Parent Interviews: 30-33 Month

  The 30-33 month interview is the source of data on parent and child outcomes and assessed the extent to which families received the Healthy Steps intervention. Specifically, parents were asked about utilization of health-related services and about the child's health and progress in reaching age-appropriate developmental milestones, concerns the parent had about the child's development or behavior, and whether the child was referred to services for a behavior or developmentally-related problem. Additional questions addressed parenting activities that promote development, family routines, engagement in safety activities, the mother's general health status, use of substances, use of mental health services, and use of the child's doctor or her obstetrician/gynecologist as a source for discussing problems with depression and use of preventive health care.

The Housing and Children's Healthy Development (HCHD) Study included four main aims:

1. to learn how parents make choices about where to live while negotiating tradeoffs between dwelling unit quality, neighborhood quality, and school quality;
2. to assess how features of the child's social contexts--home, neighborhood, and school--combine to influence key cognitive, socio-emotional, and health outcomes among parents and their children;
3. to examine how the quality of housing affects parenting practices and outcomes for children and their caregivers; and
4. to enhance the study of child development through theoretical and methodological advances in the study of housing and the other social contexts related to housing.

For this collection, the study team conducted Wave 1 data collection with families in Cleveland, Ohio (Cuyahoga County) and Dallas, Texas, United States, using a randomized controlled trial design. One-half of the sample was an experimental sample consisting of applicants for a federal housing voucher, including both voucher winners (treatment group) and voucher losers (control group). The other half of the sample was generated through a random selection and screening process in census blocks that varied by household income weighted toward lower-income blocks.

Interviews were conducted with primary caregivers, lasting about 90 minutes, and included the collection of anthropometric measures from primary caregivers and children and administration of Woodcock-Johnson tests to children. Primary caregiver voucher sample participants were asked for three blood pressure measurements, and blood spots were collected from voucher sample primary caregivers and children. The data collection also includes laser tape measurement of all rooms in a household, 8 block face neighborhood observations, and post-interview observations. Four-day leave-behind child time diary data were collected but are not available.

The Housing and Children's Healthy Development (HCHD) Study included four main aims:

1. to learn how parents make choices about where to live while negotiating tradeoffs between dwelling unit quality, neighborhood quality, and school quality;
2. to assess how features of the child's social contexts--home, neighborhood, and school--combine to influence key cognitive, socio-emotional, and health outcomes among parents and their children;
3. to examine how the quality of housing affects parenting practices and outcomes for children and their caregivers; and
4. to enhance the study of child development through theoretical and methodological advances in the study of housing and the other social contexts related to housing.

This collection includes data from Wave 2 of the HCHD Study. In Wave 2, telephone interviews were completed with 1,413 primary caregivers (PCGs) from the Wave 1 data collection. The PCGs also provided reports for 1,954 focal children who were still living in the household of the caregiver at the time of the Wave 2 survey. Wave 2 data collection included a coverscreen to gather updated location and contact information for the PCGs and children to determine household eligibility, and a PCG questionnaire based largely on the Wave 1 protocol with modifications for telephone interviewing.

This data collection contains the first four waves of the Iowa Youth and Families Project (IYFP), conducted in 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992. The Iowa Youth and Families Project was developed from an initial sample of 451 7th graders from two-parent families in rural Iowa. The study was merged with the Iowa Single Parent Project (ISPP) to form the Iowa Family Transitions Project in 1994, when the target youth were seniors in high school. Survey data were collected from the target child (7th grader), a sibling within four years of age of the target child, and both parents. Field interviewers visited families at their homes on several occasions to administer questionnaires and videotape interaction tasks including family discussion tasks, family problem-solving tasks, sibling interaction tasks, and marital interaction tasks.

The Household Data files contain information about the family's financial situation, involvement in farming, and demographic information about household members.

The Parent and the Child Survey Data files contain responses to survey questions about the quality and stability of family relationships, emotional, physical, and behavioral problems of individual family members, parent-child conflict, family problem-solving skills, social and financial support from outside the home, traumatic life experiences, alcohol, drug, and tobacco use, and opinions on topics such as abortion, parenting, and gender roles. In addition, the Child Survey Data files include responses collected from the target child and his or her sibling in the study about experiences with puberty, dating, sexual activity, and risk-taking behavior.

The Problem-Solving Data files contain survey data collected from respondents about the family interactions tasks.

The Observational Data files contain the interviewers' observations collected during these tasks.

Demographic variables include sex, age, employment status, occupation, income, home ownership, religious preference, frequency of religious attendance, as well as the ages and sex of all household members and their relationship to the head of household. Demographic information collected on the parents also includes their birth order within their family, the ages and political philosophy of their parents, the sex, age, education level, and occupation of their siblings, and the country of origin of their ancestors.

In 2010, the United States Congress authorized the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program, which started a major expansion of evidence-based home visiting programs for families living in at-risk communities. MIECHV is administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in collaboration with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The authorizing legislation required an evaluation of the program, which became the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE). The evaluation is being conducted for HHS by MDRC with James Bell Associates, Johns Hopkins University, Mathematica, the University of Georgia, and Columbia University.

MIHOPE was designed to learn whether families benefit from MIECHV-funded early childhood home visiting programs, and if so, how. The study included the four evidence-based models that 10 or more states chose in their initial MIECHV plans in fiscal year 2010-2011: Early Head Start - Home-based option, Healthy Families America, Nurse-Family Partnership, and Parents as Teachers. MIHOPE was the first study to include all of these four evidence-based models.

To provide rigorous evidence on the MIECHV-funded programs' effects, the study randomly assigned more than 4,200 families to receive either MIECHV-funded home visiting or information on community services. As is the standard method in studies that use random assignment, the primary analytical strategy in MIHOPE was to compare the outcomes of the entire program group with those of the entire control group.

As per the authorizing legislation, the study measured early effects on family and child outcomes in the areas listed below, with the exception of school readiness and academic achievement (which were not included at this point because children were too young to measure those outcomes):

• Prenatal, maternal, and newborn health
• Child health and development, including child maltreatment
• Parenting skills
• School readiness and child academic achievement
• Crime and domestic violence
• Family economic self-sufficiency
• Referrals and service coordination

Videos and Video Metadata: Two sets of videos are included in the MIHOPE restricted access files. They include:

• Mother-home visitor interactions at 387 home visits and
• Interactions between child and mother using the "Three Bags" and "Clean-Up" tasks with 2,832 families.

The mother-home visitor interaction videos were recorded only for treatment group families at two points in time: the first was, on average, about eight weeks after the family's first home visit and the second was about eight months after the family's first home visit. Overall, 264 families are included in the mother-home visitor interaction videos in total, with 123 of these families recorded at both points in time.

The mother-child interaction videos, during which the child and mother play with toys contained in three bags and place the toys back in the bags (the "Three Bags" and "Clean-Up" tasks), were recorded when the 15-month in-home assessments were conducted and are available for 2,832 families in the treatment and control groups.

The videos are only linkable to a few pieces of metadata (home visiting model, video ID, treatment status, and variables indicating whether the family appears in the home visit videos, the three-bag task videos, or both). The videos in the restricted access data are not linkable to any other data included in the restricted access files. Additionally, the videos may only be viewed at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research's on-site Physical Data Enclave in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) evaluation was launched in 2003 to develop, to implement, and to test the effectiveness of a program aimed at strengthening low-income couples' marriages as one approach for supporting stable and nurturing family environments and parents' and children's well-being. The evaluation was led by MDRC and was sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families, United States Department of Health and Human Services.The SHM program was a voluntary yearlong marriage education program for low-income married couples who had children or were expecting a child. The program provided a series of group workshops based on structured curricula designed to enhance couples' relationships; supplemental activities to build on workshop themes; and family support services to address participation barriers, connect families with other services, and reinforce curricular themes.

The study sample consists of 6,298 couples (12,596 adult sample members) who were expecting a child or had a child under 18 years old at the time of study entry. The sample consists primarily of low-to-modest income, married couples with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. In each family, one child was randomly selected to be the focus of any child-related measures gathered in the data collection activities. These children ranged from pre-birth to 14 years old at the time of enrollment in the study. Follow-up interviews were conducted at 12 and 30 months after baseline data collection. More detail is provided in the study documentation.