Presents the results of a pilot study of the use of the Parents As Teachers (PAT) parent education program among Hmong mothers and their children. PAT is a primary prevention and early education program that provides home-based parenting, child development, and health education to parents of children from birth to age three. The pilot itself took place in a large Southwestern inner city, and a young Hmong mother was recruited and trained as parent educator/community health worker. Results indicated that while the PAT program was considered important to the Hmong, its value may not have been quite that imagined by the program’s developers. In particular, the insular Hmong community, with its effective, culturally intact tradition of care for pregnant mothers and the parenting of young children, did not seem in dire need of information on the importance of sensitivity, stimulation, and responsiveness to the behavioral cues of young children. Instead, the Hmong are concerned about their need to acculturate to the unfamiliar conditions of urban American life, especially navigating the educational, medical, and social systems. Thus, the primary value of PAT may be to serve as a mediator between outside society and the isolated world of Hmong mothers.
