The Parents as Teachers Essential Requirements and Quality Assurance Guidelines represent the structural elements necessary for model fidelity and support the development and growth of a Parents as Teachers affiliate. When quality services are provided to children and families, outcomes are maximized. 

Read the Essential Requirements for initiating a new Parents as Teachers affiliate.

Consider the Readiness Reflection prior to implementation of the model.

An Affiliate Plan guides organizations through program planning to build a strong foundation for a high quality services. Designed as a logic model, it links inputs, activities, outputs and outcomes for families. It also helps determine appropriate staffing and budget. Keeping the end in mind as a new program is developed leads to strong programs and maximizes positive outcomes for families. The Quality Assurance Guidelines provide detailed guidance to support the completion of the program plan.

We are committed to providing the highest level of program support to our affiliates. Affiliates incur an annual program support fee which provides benefits that include individualized start-up and implementation consultation, consultation on Annual Program Report and Affiliate Quality Assessment, access to learning communities and mentoring networks and more.

High quality Parents as Teachers affiliates regularly monitor compliance with the essential requirements and pursue continuous quality improvement. The Affiliate Quality Assurance Blueprint is designed to help supervisors and parent educators maintain two vital aspects of model fidelity: structural fidelity and process fidelity. This blueprint is to be used on an ongoing basis, following Model Implementation training.

The Affiliate Quality Assurance blueprint identifies several central quality assurance and improvement activities in which supervisors and parent educators should engage, including:

• supervision and professional development
• service delivery documentation and review
• review of services for families and children

Affiliate Performance Report

Submission of the annual Affiliate Performance Report (APR) is an essential requirement for all Parents as Teachers affiliates. Along with descriptive information about program design, the APR is a tool for reporting on and understanding service delivery and program implementation. An important characteristic of high quality replication is the use of data for continuous quality improvement (CQI). Upon submission of the APR in the eBusiness portal, affiliates will have immediate access to reports that summarize their data and can be used to inform their CQI efforts. 

• 2012-2013 Affiliate Performance Report (APR) Form and APR instructions [download]

The 2012-2013 web-based APR opens on May 1 and is due by August 15. It can only be submitted via the Parents as Teachers portal. Paper copies are not accepted.

Affiliate Quality Assessment: Quality Standards and Self-Study Tool (2012)

To reflect the updated Parents as Teachers approach and model fidelity requirements, an updated version of the Parents as Teachers quality standards is being developed. This revision is based on early childhood home visiting research, literature and other sets of standards, as well as stakeholder input and field experience from state leaders, trainers and other key stakeholders in the field.

A final version, which includes an affiliate quality assessment (made up of a self-study and quality endorsement process) is being piloted now. It is made up of 130 implementation standards, including the 18 essential requirements. The standards focus on quality in three main areas:

1. organizational supports and continuous quality improvement
2. staff competence
3. Parents as Teachers services

Together, the standards represent the fundamental expectations for a quality Parents as Teachers affiliate.

The pilot will conclude in Spring and a final version will then be released so affiliates can become familiar with them. We anticipate that affiliates will be able to begin the self-study and quality endorsement process in July 2013, although it will not be required until after July 2014.

Broader scale rollout—bringing all affiliates into a four-year self-study/quality endorsement cycle—will begin after the July 2014 deadline for implementing the Parents as Teachers essential requirements. Rollout will be done in stages, with  a certain number of affiliates in one year, another set in year two, and so forth across a four-year period.

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