A Web-Based Professional Development Program for Child Care Providers

描述(由申请者提供)：一个关键的全国性问题是缺乏高质量、负担得起的儿童保育。尽管早期干预的一项重要任务是帮助儿童建立社交情绪能力，但在儿童保育者中，关于婴儿社交情绪发育的知识和支持积极社交情绪结果的循证照料做法严重缺乏。区域和国家对儿童保育质量的研究表明，尽管高质量的保育始终与更好的儿童结果相关，但只有不到10%的婴儿保育环境达到良好或优良质量的标准(NACCRRA，2008年)。这令人担忧，因为全国1160万婴儿和学步儿童中有近一半接受父母以外的人的照顾，而职业母亲的孩子平均每周花35个小时照看孩子(NACCRRA，2008)。在目前的应用中，我们建议将基于证据的游戏和学习策略计划(PALS)调整为在儿童保育中提供，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绪结果。为了方便儿童保育提供者获得该计划，我们将使用我们现有的基于网络的PALS计划交付系统，旨在解决许多已知的阻碍研究成功转化为实践的障碍(婴儿网；Feil，Bagget，Davis等人，2008年)。我们将通过开发新的文本、音频和视频来适应婴儿网，以反映真实的儿童保育背景，为儿童保育提供者创建婴儿网(婴儿网-CCP)。婴儿网络-CCP将包括每周一次的会议，其中以互动技能为基础的教程将通过计算机眼球摄像头记录由参与者创建的提供者与婴儿互动的视频来增强。然后，提供者和教练可以通过互联网同时查看这些交互，同时通过每周电话支持一起讨论它们，从而可以进行远程进度监控，以做出有效的干预决策。在第一年，调整和发展婴幼儿网络方案将涉及一个持续、反复的测试和改进过程，使用重点小组方法，并从关键的利益攸关方群体，包括儿童保育管理员、培训者和提供者那里获得反馈。在第一年结束时，我们将继续改进，与两个连续的托儿所和婴儿组(每个组10个托儿所/婴儿)进行试点前评估。我们将在每个幼儿保育教室放置带眼球摄像头和无线互联网接入的笔记本电脑。评估结果将侧重于相对于提供者干预过程的可行性和可用性的衡量，以及提供者的知识、技能和满意度以及婴儿社会情感功能的结果衡量。 公共卫生相关性：在目前的应用中，我们建议将基于证据的游戏和学习策略计划(PALS)转移到儿童保育环境中，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绪结果。为了方便儿童保育提供者访问该计划，我们将利用我们现有的基于网络的PALS计划交付系统，旨在解决许多已知的阻碍研究成功转化为实践的障碍(婴儿网；Feil，Bagget，Davis等人，2008；Baggett等人，正在出版中)。这项研究将为儿童保育提供者改善婴儿社交情绪结果的专业发展计划的可用性和可行性提供重要信息。

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.