A Web-Based Professional Development Program for Child Care Providers

描述（由申请人提供）：一个关键的国家关注的是缺乏高质量，负担得起的儿童保育。尽管早期干预的一个重要任务是帮助儿童建立社交情感能力，但儿童保育提供者严重缺乏有关婴儿社交情感发展的知识和支持积极社交情感结果的循证护理实践。对儿童保育质量的区域和国家研究表明，尽管高质量的保育始终与更好的儿童结局相关，但只有不到10%的婴儿保育环境符合良好或优秀质量的标准（NACCRRA，2008年）。鉴于全国1 160万名婴幼儿中有近一半接受父母以外的人的照料，职业母亲的子女平均每周花35个小时在儿童保育上，这一情况令人震惊（国家儿童和青少年事务部，2008年）。 在当前的应用中，我们建议采用循证的游戏和学习策略计划（帕尔斯），该计划已被证明可以改善父母的反应能力和婴儿的社会情感结果，用于儿童保育。为了方便儿童保育提供者访问该计划，我们将使用我们现有的基于网络的交付系统的帕尔斯计划，旨在解决许多已知的障碍，阻碍研究成功转移到实践（婴儿网;费勒，Bagget，戴维斯等人，2008年）。我们将通过开发反映真实育儿环境的新文本、音频和视频来调整婴儿网，以创建婴儿网（婴儿网-CCP）。婴儿网络CCP将包括每周一次的会议，其中互动技能为基础的教程将加强与参与者创建的视频提供者与婴儿的互动记录通过电脑眼球摄像头。然后，提供者和教练可以在互联网上同时查看这些交互，同时通过每周电话支持一起讨论它们，以便可以进行远端进展监测，以做出有效的干预决策。 在第一年，婴儿网络-CCP的调整和发展将涉及一个持续的、反复的测试和完善过程，使用焦点小组方法，并听取包括儿童保育管理人员、培训人员和提供者在内的关键利益攸关方群体的反馈。在第一年结束时，我们将继续完善，对连续两个儿童保育提供者和婴儿队列（每个队列中n=10个提供者/婴儿）进行前后试点评估。我们将在每个幼儿教室放置带有眼球摄像头和无线互联网接入的笔记本电脑。评估结果将侧重于衡量与提供者干预过程相关的可行性和可用性，以及衡量提供者知识、技能和满意度以及婴儿社会情感功能的结果。 公共卫生相关性：在目前的应用中，我们建议转移到儿童保育环境中，循证的游戏和学习策略计划（帕尔斯），这已被证明可以提高父母的反应和婴儿的社会情感的结果。为了促进儿童保育提供者进入该计划，我们将利用我们现有的基于网络的交付系统，用于帕尔斯计划，旨在解决许多已知的障碍，阻碍研究成功转移到实践（婴儿网;费勒，Bagget，戴维斯等人，2008; Baggett等人，出版中）。这项研究将提供重要的信息的可用性和可行性的专业发展计划的儿童保育提供者，以改善婴儿的社会情感的结果。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A critical national concern is the lack of high quality, affordable child care. Though an important charge of early intervention is to help children establish social-emotional competencies, knowledge about infant social- emotional development and evidence-based caregiving practices for supporting positive social-emotional outcomes are woefully lacking among child care providers. Regional and national studies of child care quality show that although high quality care is consistently associated with better child outcomes, less than ten percent of infant child care environments met criteria for good or excellent quality (NACCRRA, 2008). This is alarming given that nearly half of the 11.6 million infants and toddlers in the nation receive care from someone other than a parent and children of working mothers spend an average of 35 hours per week in child care (NACCRRA, 2008). In the current application, we propose to adapt the evidence-based Play and Learning Strategies program (PALS), which has been demonstrated to improve parent responsiveness and infant social-emotional outcomes, for delivery within child care. To facilitate child care provider access to the program, we will use our existing Web-based delivery system for the PALS program designed to address many of the barriers known to hinder the successful transfer of research to practice (Infant Net; Feil, Bagget, Davis et al., 2008). We will adapt Infant Net, by developing new text, audio, and video that reflect authentic childcare contexts, to create Infant Net for Child Care Providers (Infant Net-CCP). Infant Net-CCP will include weekly sessions in which interactive skills-based tutorials will be enhanced with participant-created videos of provider-infant interactions recorded via a computer eyeball camera. These interactions can then be viewed over the internet simultaneously by providers and coaches while discussing them together through weekly phone support such that distal progress monitoring can occur to make effective intervention decisions. During the first year, adaptation and development of Infant Net-CCP will involve a continuous, iterative process of testing and refinement, using focus group methodology with feedback from key groups of stakeholders, including childcare administrators, trainers, and providers. At the end of Year 1, we will continue refinement by conducting a pre-post pilot evaluation with two successive cohorts of child care providers and infants (n=10 providers/infants in each cohort). We will place laptop computers with an eyeball camera and wireless Internet access in each child care classroom. Evaluation outcomes will focus on measures of feasibility and usability relative to the intervention process for providers as well as outcome measures of provider knowledge, skill and satisfaction and infant social emotional functioning. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: In the current application, we propose to transfer to the child care environment, the evidence-based Play and Learning Strategies program (PALS), which has been demonstrated to improve parent responsiveness and infant social-emotional outcomes. To facilitate child care provider access to the program, we will utilize our existing Web-based delivery system for the PALS program designed to address many of the barriers known to hinder the successful transfer of research to practice (Infant Net; Feil, Bagget, Davis et al., 2008; Baggett et al., in press). This research will provide important information about the usability and feasibility of a professional development program for child care providers to improve infant social-emotional outcomes.