DOI: 10.3886/icpsr39442
title: Head Start REACH: Strengthening Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Approaches with Families (HS REACH), United States, 2024-2025
title: Archival Version

description: This Head Start REACH: Strengthening Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Approaches with Families (HS REACH) project included a mixed-methods study to understand recruitment, selection, and enrollment approaches that Head Start programs use to engage Head Start-eligible families, including those experiencing adversities.
The dataset in this release included a large, purposive sample of 60 Head Start programs across 15 geographic areas. The sample included program directors, staff with primary responsibility for eligibility, recruitment, selection, enrollment, and attendance (ERSEA), parents and caregivers who participate in the Head Start programs, and community organizations that Head Start programs partner with to recruit, select, and enroll families.
The Heard Start REACH project was designed to answer the following research questions:

How do Head Start programs and their partners support family recruitment, selection, and enrollment, especially among families with different adversities or demographic characteristics and different community contexts?
What factors shape Head Start program practices, and how do they differ across families with different adversities and demographic characteristics and across different community contexts?
What are Head Start families' perceptions of and experiences with Head Start recruitment, selection, and enrollment? How do experiences differ across families with different adversities and demographic characteristics and across different community contexts?
What factors shape families' recruitment, selection, and enrollment experiences? How do those experiences differ across families with different adversities and demographic characteristics and across different community contexts?
What Head Start recruitment, selection, and enrollment practices are most promising with families, including families with different adversities or demographic characteristics and different community contexts?
Users should note that while the mixed-methods study did include qualitative transcripts, the transcripts are not included in the release to protect respondents' privacy.
description: The purpose of the Head Start REACH: Strengthening Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Approaches with Families (HS REACH) mixed-methods study was to expand understanding of how Head Start programs implement recruitment, selection, and enrollment practices and how such practices reflect their community contexts. It was designed to inform program planning, technical assistance, and the wider field by:

Building on the foundational work of the project--a literature synthesis and conceptual framework, case studies in Head Start programs, and engagement with partners including OHS staff, parents and other caregivers, and academic experts--to fill existing gaps in knowledge about Head Start programs' recruitment, selection, and enrollment practices.
Providing in-depth, contextual information about recruitment, selection, and enrollment practices and experiences.
Identifying promising recruitment, selection, and enrollment practices that could be implemented, evaluated, and refined in a future implementation study.
Informing training and technical assistance regarding recruitment, selection, and enrollment challenges and needs.
description: The mixed-methods study collected data from 60 Head Start programs and 56 community partner organizations that work with those Head Start programs across 15 geographic areas. The study team conducted nonprobability, purposive sampling. The purposive sampling design ensured the study would include programs from a range of geographic areas, provide a balance of urban and rural communities, and include families and programs with a variety of characteristics (such as program size and type (whether Head Start, Early Head Start, or both) and agency type) and characteristics of the families the programs serve.
The study design included four separate surveys. The surveys were designed to be administered to Head Start program directors; eligibility, recruitment, selection, enrollment, and attendance (ERSEA) lead staff; parents and caregivers of children enrolled in Head Start; and community organizations that Head Start programs partner with for their recruitment, selection, and enrollment activities.
All surveys were offered online. However, the parent and caregiver survey (DS3) was additionally offered on paper. If completed on paper, the study team staff entered the data from the paper surveys into the corresponding web-based instrument.
description: <b>The Program Director Survey (DS1)</b> collected information on the program's characteristics and the characteristics of the families served; roles of ERSEA lead staff members; and information about staff members from community partner organizations.
<b>The ERSEA Lead Staff Survey (DS2)</b> collected information about respondent background characteristics; staffing and staff training related to recruitment, selection, and enrollment; and the development and use of recruitment, selection, and enrollment practices.
<b>The Parent/Caregiver Survey (DS3)</b> asked about several topics, including family background and demographics; families' experiences with recruitment into Head Start; families' experiences with the waitlist; families' experiences enrolling into Head Start; families' overall experiences with recruitment, selection, and enrollment; and program supports and services.
<b>The Community Partner Staff Survey (DS4)</b> asked about the organization's characteristics; partnership and communication with Head Start; and activities and training for connecting families to Head Start.
description: Response Rates: 140 programs were invited to participate in the study (95 urban and 45 rural), which resulted in a total of 60 programs (39 urban and 21 rural).
Completed surveys per dataset:

Program Director Survey (DS1): 39 Urban surveys and 21 Rural surveys completed (100 percent of 60 respondent target)
ERSEA Lead Staff Survey (DS2): 39 Urban surveys and 21 Rural surveys completed (100 percent of 60 respondent target)
Parent/caregiver Survey (DS3): 345 Urban surveys and 200 Rural surveys completed (182 percent of 300 respondent target)
Community Partner Survey (DS4): 32 Urban surveys and 24 Rural surveys completed (93 percent of 60 respondent target)
description: The research team purposively sampled 18 geographic areas across Head Start Regions 1 through 10 and aimed to have an average of four programs participating in each of 15 areas. An average of four programs (ranging from 2 to 6) participated in each of 15 areas, including 6 rural areas and 9 urban areas. This approach included more urban programs, where the majority of Head Start children and families are served, but provided a large enough rural sample to draw comparisons between urban and rural programs.
The research team identified geographic areas with high rates of deep poverty (households living below 50 percent of the federal poverty line) and where at least two Head Start programs were operating. In these geographic areas, at least two Head Start programs (from distinct grant recipients) operated at least one provider in a census tract where the percentage of families living in deep poverty was in the top half of all U.S. census tracts. To consider a set of programs as being within a given area, a provider from one program needed to be within seven miles of a provider from a different program in an urban area, or within 40 miles in a rural area.
Urban tracts were defined as census tracts that fell completely within the U.S. Census Urban Areas. Rural tracts were defined as (1) census tracts that fell completely outside of U.S. Census Urban Areas and (2) tracts that fell partially within U.S. Census Urban Areas but were defined as small towns or rural areas according to Rural-Urban Area (RUCA) codes (codes 7-10). The research team defined census tracts that fell partially within U.S. Census Urban Areas but were larger than small towns according to RUCA (codes 1-6) as neither rural nor urban (that is, suburban). Within each county, the research team considered for selection the area that contained the highest number of programs that met these criteria.
The research team then created recruitment tiers to prioritize areas among all the areas that matched the selection criteria and then used those recruitment tiers and program characteristics to prioritize programs for recruitment within prioritized areas. The selection criteria required that at least one of the program's providers operate in an urban or rural census tract with higher rates of deep poverty. Many programs operate providers in multiple census tracts that are defined by varying levels of deep poverty and urbanicity (including a mix of urban, rural, and suburban tracts).
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Program Director Data
DS2: ERSEA Staff Data
DS3: Parent Caregiver Data
DS4: Community Partner Data
description: Program directors, staff with primary responsibility for eligibility, recruitment, selection, enrollment, and attendance (ERSEA), parents and caregivers who participate in the Head Start programs, and community organizations that Head Start programs partner with to recruit, select, and enroll families.
description: face-to-face interview; paper and pencil interview (PAPI); web-based survey