Cooperative Extension has a well-established track record in delivering information parents find useful. Evaluations of the newsletters show they really work.

• Parents rate the newsletters as highly useful for childrearing advice more often than any other source of information, including physicians, nurses, relatives, and other printed materials. (1)
• The newsletters are shared and discussed within the parents’ social networks, averaging two readers per newsletter. Married mothers discuss them with their husbands; single mothers share and discuss the newsletters with their own mothers. (2)
• In studies in CA, DE and WI, those who report they change their behaviors and attitudes most – as a result of reading the newsletters – are youngest, poorest and least educated. (1)
• Parents receiving the newsletters for a year (compared to control group parents who do not) have beliefs significantly less like those of child abusing parents. They also report spanking or slapping their babies significantly fewer times in the previous week. (3) In a study of a high risk group of parents in Nevada, none had substantiated reports of child maltreatment after receiving the newsletters for two years. (4)
• Parents receiving the newsletters for a year, compared to control group parents who did not, provided a significantly more intellectually stimulating home environment for their infants and toddlers. Parents also report reading to their babies more often. (3)
• Hispanic mothers in an Oregon home visiting program rated the newsletters as more useful than any other parenting information, and reported positive changes in 6 areas of parenting practice. Home visitors reported using the newsletter as a teaching tool that could be left with the families. (5)
• Rural Appalachian parents were strongly supportive of age-paced newsletters. Members of their Child Care Coalition believe that parenting newsletters are more appropriate than group educational sessions where there is no public transportation and families can’t afford to drive to meetings – or they feel uncomfortable meeting with “outsiders.” (6)

References

1. Cudaback, D., Darden, C., Nelson, P., O’Brien, S., Pinsky, D., & Wiggins, E. (1985). Becoming successful parents: Can age-paced newsletters help? Family Relations, 34, 271-275.
   Dickinson, N. & Cudaback, D. (1992). Parent education for adolescent mothers. Journal of Primary Prevention, 13, 23-35.
   Nelson, P. (1986). Newsletters: An effective delivery mode for providing educational information and emotional support to single parent families? Family Relations, 35, 183-188.
   Riley, D., Meinhardt, G., Nelson, C., Salisbury, M., & Winnet, T. (1991). How effective are age-paced newsletters for new parents? A replication and extension of earlier studies. Family Relations, 40, 247-253.
2. Riley, D., & Waterston, T. (2002). Helping teenage mothers with child rearing advice: Report on an intervention. Paper presented to Parent-Child 2002 International Conference, London, April 19, 2002.
   Walker, S. & Riley, D. (2001). Involvement of the personal social network as a factor in parent education effectiveness. Family Relations, 50, 186-193.
3. Riley, D. Using local research to change 100 communities for children and families. American Psychologist, 52, 424-433.
4. Martin, S. and Weigel, D. (2001). Age-paced parenting materials and child maltreatment: Can newsletters make a difference? Paper presented at the 2001 National Council on Family Relations,
5. Weatherspoon, J. & Bowman, S. Reaching High-Risk Hispanic Families In A Home Visiting Program With Age-Paced Newsletters. Proposal submitted to the National Council on Family Relations, 2003.
6. Gnatuk, C. & Powell, P. Age-Paced Newsletters in Rural Appalachia., 2003 Natl. Council on Family Relation