Designed to foster relationships between parents and children, the Parent Child Development Center targets low-income families in which mothers are the primary caregivers and children are ages 2 months to 3 years. The program offers a broad range of support services for both mothers and children. For example, mothers are educated in socioemotional, intellectual, and physical aspects of infant and child development through practical experiences and group discussions with staff and other mothers. Caregiver development is promoted through training in home management and exposure to community resources and continuing education classes. The needs of the entire family are addressed by providing transportation to services, some meals, health and social services, programs for siblings, and small stipends for participants. In addition, the intervention provides activities for children and structured play sessions for mothers and children that are videotaped and analyzed to improve families' communication and interaction skills.

The goal of this program is to foster positive family relationships.

This program was evaluated in three separate studies in Birmingham, Ala; Houston, Texas; and New Orleans, La. The evaluation of the Houston program resulted in significantly better scores for treatment youths on verbal scales, though not on arithmetic or spelling. Control group students were rated as significantly more hostile than program youths. There were no differences between the treatment group and the control group as far as overall grades or the number of teacher-reported contacts with parents during the school year. Treatment youths did seem to do better in school regarding retention in grade and referral to special resources.