The Yale Child Welfare Research Program: Implications for Social Policy

Abstract

In the late 1960s, there were a large number of intervention projects undertaken to help disadvantaged families and children (Bronfenbrenner, 1975; Day & Parker, 1977; Ryan, 1974). While these programs differed widely in research design, methodological sophistication, intervention philosophy, and program format, a common denominator was the hope and assumption that intervening early in the lives of disadvantaged children would help them adjust more successfully to school and, hence, to adult life. This article will focus on one such comprehensive intervention project, the Yale Child Welfare Research Program, carried out at the Yale Child Study Center from 1967 to 1972. We will first outline some major concerns in the field of early intervention, in order to place the Yale project in historical perspective. After a brief description of the project's goals and methods, the principal short-term and long-term effects of the intervention will be reviewed. The article will close with discussion of the social policy implications that can be drawn from interventions such as the Yale Child Welfare Research Program. The fundamental issue in the early intervention literature has been the effectiveness of such massive programs. An important facet of this issue is the relative merits of center-based as opposed to home-based programs. Center-based programs ran the gamut from projects such as those of Heber (Garber & Heber, 1977) in Milwaukee, and the North Carolina Abecedarian program (Ramey et al., 1976), which provided full-time day care from infancy on, to programs such as that of Klaus and Gray (1968), which provided summer compensatory education programs. In his review of many programs, Bronfenbrenner (1975) concluded that IQ gains from center-based programs were not sustained beyond second or third grade and that programs with a strong The Yale Child Welfare Research Program, directed by Sally Provence, M.D., received its financial support from the U.S. Children's Bureau, Office of Child Development, Department of Health, Education and Welfare (No. PR900). A grant from the Ford Foundation, New York supported the work on data organization and analysis. The independent follow-up was supported by Grant PHS-90-C-912 from the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families, and Research Grant HD-08008-13 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The authors wish to thank the many dedicated people who worked in the Yale Child Welfare Research Program and the independent follow-up; the New Haven public schools for their cooperation; and the children and parents who shared their lives with