The FMF Connect Teacher Companion Website: developing and testing an FASD-informed intervention for teachers

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) are highly prevalent yet underrecognized neurodevelopmental disabilities. Despite many being cognitively able, children with FASD are at risk of poor academic performance and school disruption including dropout, suspension, and expulsion. Deficits in executive functioning and self-regulation likely contribute to this risk. Teachers often do not receive effective training on how to support their students with FASD, and are frequently unaware of the effects of this neurodevelopmental disability on learning and behavior. Specifically, lack of training on FASD may lead teachers to interpret behavior as willful, rather than as a result of the disability, which can result in use of less effective behavior management strategies, and the teacher feeling frustrated and unsuccessful. The Families Moving Forward (FMF) Program and its derivative mobile health intervention, FMF Connect, provide an ideal framework to inform a scalable intervention for teachers. The FMF Program is a scientifically-validated behavioral consultation program, developed at Seattle Children’s Research Institute/University of Washington. Parent participants in development and initial trials of FMF Connect have emphasized the need for materials to share with teachers and school staff, and have specifically called for a teacher component to FMF Connect. The proposed project will address this need by developing and testing the FMF Connect Teacher Companion website. The aims of the proposed project are to 1a) utilize the ADAPT-ITT framework and incorporate stakeholder feedback to adapt materials from the FMF Program and FMF Connect to be relevant to teachers’ needs and the classroom setting; 1b) build a website incorporating these adapted materials and principles of effort-optimized interventions to increase engagement with digital interventions; and 2) pilot the website to determine feasibility for a larger trial, including technological functionality and study design acceptability. This project is essential to increase teacher knowledge of FASD and reduce barriers to quality services for children and families affected by FASD. This will be the first theory-informed and empirically-derived digital FASD intervention for teachers; it will be iteratively developed and informed by stakeholder feedback, ensuring its relevance in meeting teachers’ needs. It will also use ADAPT-ITT, a systematic and evidence-based framework to guide development, making it grounded in theory and methodologically sound. The proposed intervention will be self-directed and accessed at will, in contrast to an in-person training which happens at a given time for a given duration. It will also increase accessibility of evidence-based materials for teachers. The proposed project will also provide comprehensive mentored training to prepare the PI for a career as an independent investigator. Under the guidance of experts in the FASD, intervention, and school consultation fields, the PI will gain essential competencies in models of intervening in educational systems, theory and data-driven intervention development, and technical skills in intervention dissemination.