Building successful home visitor–mother relationships and reaching program goals in two Early Head Start programs: A qualitative look at contributing factors

This paper presents the results of two qualitative studies, conducted independently in two Early Head Start programs, exploring the reasons given by mothers and home visitors for family success or lack of success in achieving program goals and for engagement in the mother–home visitor relationship. Several patterns pertaining to family issues and program characteristics emerged. The family factors that seemed most important included the press of mild to serious stressors, social support from relatives and romantic partners, and individual parent characteristics such as personality, health, and motivation. On the program side, home visitor conscientiousness, home visitor/mother match in terms of personality and personal history, and efforts to build program loyalty seemed to have particularly strong influences.