Comfort Consults, LLC

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KIPS

KIPS is a practical, evidenced-based tool that reliably assesses the quality of parenting behaviors during free play with a young child. With valid family information, you can work more effectively to promote healthy child and family development. By combining results, you can document parenting outcomes of your program.

KIPS is a strong assessment tool that will help you measure families’ progress in order to gather data about outcomes and fulfill state evaluation expectations.

KIPS is a wonderful, friendly tool for parent observation and to coach parents on their parenting skills and strengths. The staff have found the online training flexible, accessible and easy to work into their daily schedules. . . .The parents love the opportunity to learn through their own experiences, watching themselves grow, knowing their strengths, and realizing the outcomes they have with their families.

KIPS is useful for assessing parenting behaviors in diverse families. Parent Educators can use the assessments to tailor their work with families.

WHAT IS KIPS?
KIPS is a convenient, reliable, evidence-based tool to effectively measure parenting behaviors. Family service programs commonly aim to enhance parenting to promote children’s development. However, few programs directly assess parenting behavior. By assessing parenting, you can tailor services to individual families, track parenting progress, and document program outcomes.

KIPS FEATURES

12 parenting behaviors linked to child
development research
12 behaviors endorsed by providers as
meaningful for intervention
Validated with Caregivers of
children 2 - 71 months old
High inter-rater reliability
High internal consistency
Proven validity
Fast to Use: Observe 20 min + Score 10 min
Available in English and Spanish


What Parenting Behaviors Are Assessed?
1. Sensitivity of Responses 2. Supports Emotions 3. Physical Interaction 4. Involvement in Child’s Activities 5. Open to Child’s Agenda 6. Engagement in Language Experiences 7. Reasonable Expectations 8. Adapts Strategies to Child 9. Limits & Consequences 10. Supportive Directions 11. Encouragement 12. Promotes Exploration & Curiosity

Using KIPS
Since KIPS is used to observe caregiver-child play, it is well
received by families and children. KIPS assesses a caregiver
(e.g. parent, other family member) interacting with a child.
The observation requires only 20 minutes (15 minutes of free
play and 5 minutes of clean up, if appropriate). Scoring takes
only 10 minutes. To assure reliability, we recommend that
you videotape the play session and score later.

KIPS

As a clinician working with 0-5 year olds, I LOVED this parenting assessment. It is so useful for treatment planning and intervention. Hopefully, I will get to share knowledge of it with some of my colleagues who work in community mental health. They are always looking for relatively "easy" parenting assessments that can incorporate measurable and observable goals.

What Does KIPS Look Like?
All 12 KIPS items use 1 to 5 quality ratings with behavioral anchors

scale

Training and annual
online recertification
are required to use KIPS
see the KIPS Training page

KIPS was the missing piece in our initial assessment. . . .We are a group of three Infant Mental Health Specialists who long waited for the tool you created. It’s comprehensive, easy to administer, balanced between strength and need focus, and effective for case formulation and monitoring.

What Can You Do With KIPS?

Identify 12 key parenting behaviors
Guide staff observations
Support reflective practice and supervision
Evaluate parenting outcomes
Track parenting progress and change over time

I was surprised. I saw things in the families I didn’t realize. It made me change my whole lesson plan. The [parents] that I thought were going to score low really surprised me. My mouth was open when I saw the scores, and this was both ways - both high and low.