Family-Centered Assessment Requirement Updates
Parents as Teachers National Center has been reviewing how the essential requirements and quality standards are working for affiliates, parent educators, and families. This review has confirmed that parent educators are gathering and documenting a wide breadth of information through records, tools, screenings, assessments, and family conversations! It has also highlighted that while family-centered assessment remains valuable, writing a separate synthesis can feel duplicative when much of the information already exists elsewhere.
Therefore, Parents as Teachers National Center and Visit Tracker are developing a report that brings existing qualitative and quantitative data together into a comprehensive snapshot of the family, automating the assessment for parent educators. In addition, beginning in July 2027, Parents as Teachers National Center will remove the separate family-centered assessment essential requirement. To be clear, family-centered assessment will still be an expected part of practice and family file expectations, just not a separate essential requirement. The summary below outlines what affiliates and key partners need to know.
Quick Summary
- Essential Requirement #9 will be removed and no longer reported on the Affiliate Performance Report.
- Essential Requirement #20 will continue to include family-centered assessment as part of family file expectations and will be updated to clarify timing consistent with the timeframes outlined in the Data in Motion In addition, Quality Standards #11 and #41 will continue to include family-centered assessment.
- A new Family-Centered Assessment Synthesis Report is being developed with Visit Tracker and is expected by the end of June 2027 for use in the 2027–2028 program year. Report guidance will also be shared for use with other data systems.
- Affiliates will now have 3 choices for meeting the family-centered assessment expectation: the new Family-Centered Assessment Synthesis report, an approved tool, or the Family-Centered Assessment Synthesis Record.
Why This Change Matters
The change is intended to reduce duplication of effort for parent educators while preserving the role of family-centered assessment in informing goals and driving services. It reflects Parents as Teachers National Center’s effort to streamline documentation expectations while maintaining accountability for high-quality, family-centered services. This approach supports the conversational, collaborative work parent educators are already doing with families while reducing unnecessary documentation and data entry burden.