ParentCorps
ParentCorps transforms the pre-K experience by helping schools partner with families to build a future where all children thrive.
What We Do
A wealth of research shows that early childhood education can have profound impacts on children’s lifelong health and wellbeing. This evidence has fueled the rapid expansion of pre-K, considered a powerful policy lever for children facing inequities rooted in poverty and structural racism.
Though the expansion of pre-K holds promise, decades of research and practice highlight that educators often lack support to engage with families, especially families whose culture and lived racial experiences are different than their own. This is an urgent gap as families hold incredible power to shape children’s early learning and development, and home-school connection is critical for success.
ParentCorps targets this gap. In close partnership with pre-K programs, ParentCorps works to build a different pre-K experience—one that centers race and culture, engages parents as partners, and supports children’s social-emotional wellbeing—to help unlock the full promise of early childhood education.
An evidence-based intervention developed as an enhancement to pre-K programs, ParentCorps offers the following programs:
- a social–emotional learning program implemented by pre-K teachers
- a parenting program for all families of pre-K students
- professional development for school leaders, pre-K teachers, mental health professionals, and parent support staff
Our History
ParentCorps was founded two decades ago when a group of racially and culturally diverse researchers, mental health professionals, and educators at NYU Langone sought to create a culturally relevant program to reduce entrenched mental health and academic disparities for low-income children, largely children of color. Program developers honed in on several key components:
- families as essential partners in supporting children’s early learning and development
- pre-K as a critical opportunity to support early childhood development that is the foundation for lifelong health
- early education programs in historically disinvested neighborhoods, where structural racism has contributed to large shares of families of color living in poverty, as critical settings to disrupt inequities at scale
ParentCorps was first piloted in a Harlem public school in 2000.
Scaling Our Impact
ParentCorps currently reaches thousands of children and families across the United States. Our recent achievements include the following:
- a large-scale research-practice partnership with New York City Department of Education from 2016 to 2022, which resulted in bringing ParentCorps to hundreds of pre-K programs annually as part of the city’s Pre-K for All program
- successful partnerships with Head Start grantees and smaller school districts in Detroit, Michigan; and Corpus Christi, Texas
- rigorous evidence of impact showing that ParentCorps has meaningful and sustained impacts on academic achievement, mental health, and physical health, and continued research to understand the impact of ParentCorps at scale
- evaluating program return on investment in inform system leaders’ investment of public funds
- securing philanthropic investment to build ParentCorps’ national office and grow our reach to new systems nationwide
Contact Us
We are located in Manhattan at 227 East 30th Street. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at parentcorps@nyulangone.org.
We are looking for new school district, Head Start, and philanthropic partners to help transform the pre-K experience for children and families nationwide. Learn more about ParentCorps, including how you can get involved.