Projects
Research is at the heart of all we do at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. As one of the nation's foremost multidisciplinary centers devoted to the study of children from infancy to adolescence, our scientists are committed to conducting research and evaluation studies that improve children's lives, support families, and inform public policy.
Learn more about our projects—current and completed—by clicking on the links below. And to stay up to date on news and events related to our work via social media, visit our Project Digital Directory.
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This project will develop an African-centered, culturally responsive practice guide with specific strategies, exemplars, and materials with connected professional learning modules to guide effective implementation. The ultimate and long-term goal is to increase Black children’s social, cognitive, and emotional skills (e.g., racial identity, engagement, learning motivation, regulation), leading to strong academic and social competence and school success.
This replication study seeks to demonstrate the effectiveness of Targeted Reading Instruction (TRI, formerly called Targeted Reading Intervention) in helping grade 1 struggling readers make substantial gains in reading during one school year. It extends prior TRI studies by conducting an independent external evaluation of the TRI, testing long-term impacts for struggling readers into grade 3, and examining teachers’ sustained impacts for three years.
Through collaboration with national, state and local coalitions and organizations, the Equity Research Action Coalition will identify, track and align strategies to strengthen the focus on protecting, promoting, and preserving the well being, health, wealth, access and experiences of Black families and their families through anti-racist and cultural wealth policy making framework and communication.
This multi-year project, in partnership with Erikson Institute and the University of Delaware, seeks to understand how best to value, compensate, and authentically integrate the family child care (FCC) workforce and approach in future efforts to build and expand more equitable PreK systems. This project will involve focus groups, surveys, and case studies to understand how FCC is being integrated into PreK efforts.
The partnership among the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), County Welfare Directors Association (CWDA), Child and Family Policy Institute of California (CFPIC), California Social Work Education Center (CalSWEC), and Regional Training Academies (RTAs) is committed to supporting counties and their leadership in the implementation and sustainability of the California Child Welfare Core Practice Model (CPM).
The Calhoun Intermediate School District is seeking support for the capacity development of their systemic support staff and network partners in best practices of implementation science to support implementation of evidence-based practices with their participating local education agencies (LEAs). To support development of internal implementation capacity, the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) will provide virtual training, coaching, and consultation supports.
The Center for IDEA Early Childhood Data Systems (DaSy Center) provides national leadership and technical assistance to states to support early intervention and early childhood special education state programs in the development or enhancement of coordinated early childhood longitudinal data systems.
This project supports implementation of the Center for IDEA Fiscal Reporting's effort to provide technical assistance in the role of state liaison and/or content specialist to state Part C early intervention lead agencies to help them meet their federal obligation to collect and report special education fiscal data as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
This model demonstration seeks to increase family uptake of developmental screenings and service enrollment of traditionally underserved populations by centering family and cultural voice throughout the implementation process.
The purpose of this project is to support the use of implementation science methods and practices within the technical assistance services provided by the Comprehensive Center Region 7. The NIRN team will support capacity building efforts of the TA providers and the state education agencies being served by the comprehensive center as well as the implementation of cross-state initiatives.
The purpose of this project is to engage with grassroots and grasstops early education partners to identify and conduct a landscape analysis of active North Carolina policies and regulations focused on young children and their families (birth to age 5) with a focus on policies that show effect or promise in mitigating (or exacerbate) racial disparities in early care and education.
The Early Childhood Inclusion Professional Learning Program led by Chih-Ing Lim, PhD. at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Elena Soukakou, PhD., is committed to support the Community Psychology Hub, Singapore in ensuring that the InSP program is implemented effectively to serve young children with disabilities.
The Early Childhood TA Center (ECTA) is funded to support state Early Intervention and Preschool Special Education programs in developing high-quality early intervention and preschool special education service systems, increasing local implementation of evidence-based practices, and enhancing outcomes for young children with disabilities and their families.
The extent to which and how early education reduces achievement gaps related to race and income have not been studied extensively in rural areas in the United States, despite clear evidence that these achievement gaps are even larger in the rural United States and high-quality early education is one of the most effective means to promote educational success for all children.
This project leverages and builds upon an existing longitudinal cohort to propose hypotheses that investigate the ways in which early life stress alters well-specified developmental processes to adversely affect neurodevelopment in childhood and increase risk for obesity and other health outcomes. It extends our prior data collection both retrospectively and prospectively in order to amplify and enhance our focus on adverse exposures and health and behavior outcomes.
The goal of this series of studies is to develop recommendations that could be used to inform the next revisions of the ECERS-3, a global early care and education quality measure for children aged 3-5 that examines quality from the child's perspective.
The purpose of this evaluation project is to examine whether the provision of resources and supports to spur regional and community innovation projects to develop new business and financing models will ensure the ECE workforce is equitably compensated, well-trained, and valued, and ECE businesses are thriving, and subsequently leading to equitable, affordable, and accessible high-quality early learning experiences for young children and their families. This study will also examine facilitators and barriers to engaging in systems change in child care grounded in racial equity.
The purpose of this project is to understand the early development trajectories in both poor and non-poor young children growing up in rural areas characterized by high poverty. An interdisciplinary team of investigators has been following children from birth with measurement of child, family, and school functioning, observed mother and father sensitivity and language input in the home setting, observed quality of instruction in child care and elementary school, characteristics of the community, and biomarkers of child and maternal stress.
The purpose of this collaboration with Boston University is to develop and disseminate various products focused on the effects of racism during infancy through early childhood (birth to age 5) for racially marginalized children and families, specifically those that are Black, Latine, Indigenous, or Asian.
This collaborative project with ITTI Care at Duke Center for Child & Family Policy will work to integrate trauma-informed care practices within infant-toddler childcare settings by evaluating existing training materials and suggesting revisions as necessary and designing comprehensive instructional strategy and training curricula for both coach-the-coach and direct-to-provider professional development efforts.
University of Florida’s Lastinger Center for Learning is seeking support for capacity development in best practices of implementation science. Specifically, the Lastinger Center is looking for a two-phase approach. In Phase 1, exploration activities to support development of a team, assessment of opportunities and needs, readiness activities, and recommendations for options are proposed to support overall readiness and identification of specific areas of focus for the Center to develop internal implementation science capacity
We are examining psychiatric and health outcomes in a 5-year follow-up of 200 well-characterized, very high-risk, maltreated and non-maltreated children. This is an ideal study in which to examine patterns of stability and change in the regulation of stress-sensitive genes over time.
This study will iteratively develop and test an adapted professional development model to be used with the Advancing Social-communication And Play intervention.
The K-12 Coherent Instructional Systems portfolio of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s U.S. Program seeks to support a cohort of provider-local education agency partnerships focused on implementing coherent instructional systems (CIS) built around high-quality middle-years mathematics curricula in contexts that serve Black, Latino, and/or English Learning-designated students, and students who are experiencing poverty.
As a Learning Partner for the Effective Implementation Cohort (EIC), the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) at UNC-Chapel Hill's Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute seeks to support the cohort of Provider-Local Education Agency partnerships in their implementation and measurement efforts related to their scale-up of high-quality mathematics curricula.
This project intends to conduct an independent, unbiased evaluation of the MECK Pre-K program that will be longitudinal in scope, tracking cohorts of MECK Pre-K students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools through 5th grade. Given the longitudinal nature of the evaluation and the need to track multiple cohorts, it is expected that this project will span 10 years. The focus of that evaluation will cover three key areas: program characteristics; program implementation and quality; and student outcomes.
The National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement (NCPFCE) by the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Head Start, in partnership with the Office of Child Care is one of four National Centers that develop evidence-based best practices for Early Head Start and Head Start programs across the country, as part of a comprehensive Office of Head Start Training and Technical Assistance System. The goal of this project is to support family well-being, effective family and community engagement, and children’s school readiness, including transitions to kindergarten.
The National Clearinghouse on Autism Evidence and Practice (NCAEP) is conducting a systematic review of the current intervention literature targeting individuals on the autism spectrum. NCAEP is a continuation of the evidence review that was completed by the National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder.
This project consists of planning and implementing an evaluation of The Educare Learning Network, a consortium of programs nationwide providing high quality learning environments for at-risk children from birth to 5 years. The evaluation will document the features of Educare and how implementation of the model contributes to program quality and links to child and family outcomes.
The purpose of this project is to establish a data governance system for the NC Division of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE) that supports integrated and consistent information sharing across the Division and with outside stakeholders. The work primarily involves gathering and organizing information to develop inventory spreadsheets of federal and legislative reporting requirements and requests and early childhood data sharing across units/sections within the Division; working with key Division staff to develop a standard operating procedures portfolio for collecting, analyzing, updating, and sharing data with stakeholders outside of the Division; and proposing metrics for all units/sections across the Division to use for publicly shared data.
The following specific activities will be conducted for the purpose of producing the legislatively mandated annual report from Division of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE) regarding the North Carolina Pre-Kindergarten Program:
Extraction of data from NC Pre-K administrative databases provided to FPG by NC DHHD/DCDEE. This will occur on a monthly basis.
Cleaning of monthly data extracts in collaboration with DCDEE staff.
Compilation of the cleaned monthly data extractions into a longitudinal database that preserves the time-specific status of the NC Pre-K system.
Analysis of extracted data according to guidance of the legislation requiring annual reporting on the NC Pre-K system.
Preparation of the legislatively mandated material in draft report format.
Analyses and additions to draft report as directed by DCDEE (within the resources provided by this contract).
Ongoing communication with DCDEE regarding report content, progress of work, and requested revisions and edits to report draft resulting in production of a final report.
