Project Background

Preventing the constellation of risks associated with early childhood adversity requires responses from interdisciplinary systems, including health, mental health, early intervention, childcare and early education systems. Teleconsultation, or targeted support from a trained provider, is one promising approach to support the knowledge and skills of providers across systems. This research project is part of an ongoing evaluation of The Children's Center Utah (TCCU) Training and Teleconsultation (TTP) project, a free statewide program that provides group/individual teleconsultation and webinar trainings to any early childhood provider. TTP has been funded by the Utah Office of Substance Use and Mental Health since 2021 and has served over 2,800 unique early childhood providers across every Utah county. Despite widespread use of TTP, there has been lower uptake of the teleconsultation, thought to be due in part to limited knowledge about these services and stigma about seeking external professional support. This project seeks to understand more about usage patterns among targeted groups of providers, including perceptions of and experiences with teleconsultation, to inform program recommendations. We will use our current contact list and TTP usage data to recruit 10 providers with highest usage of webinars but no/limited teleconsultation usage ("high webinar") and 10 providers with high usage of both webinars and teleconsultation ("high webinar and teleconsultation"). We plan to conduct 4 focus groups, two "high webinar" and two "high webinar & teleconsultation" to inform targeted promotion of teleconsultation and to understand more about opportunities and barriers related to TTP.

Student Role

The student will be part of the research team supporting the TTP program evaluation, including the project PI (Dr. Loomis), a graduate-level research assistant, the TTP Program Director, and the TTP Program Coordinator. The student will be trained to co-facilitate focus groups with PI Loomis with readings, discussion, and mock focus groups. The student will co-facilitate virtual focus groups with infant and early childhood mental health providers engaged with the TTP to support the program evaluation and inform future recommendations. The student will also support transcribing focus groups and be trained in using thematic analysis to code qualitative data. The student will be part of the coding team, which will include coding, attending coding reconciliation meetings, and developing a codebook. The student will attend weekly research team meetings with the PI and research assistant and biweekly meetings with TTP program staff to discuss the progress of the project. These meetings will give the student an opportunity to learn about the program evaluation components beyond the focus groups (e.g., survey data). The student will have an opportunity to present and discuss preliminary results of the focus groups with the TTP program staff. Interested students will also be able to engage in TTP programs as a learner (e.g., attend webinars) to get a sense of the program components, and gain additional training on infant and early childhood mental health, trauma-informed care with young children, and other related topics.

Student Learning Outcomes and Benefits

This project will provide the student the experience of working as part of a research team and following a research project from data collection through dissemination. As a result of this experience, the student will be better prepared to conceptualize and carry out tangible components of program evaluations. The student will have practical experience conducting focus groups, transcribing data, and analyzing/disseminating qualitative research. The student will be better prepared to develop meaningful relationships with community partnerships and to translate research findings to practice implications. This experience will be meaningful for students wishing to develop research-practice partnerships in the future. Students wishing to engage in publication will also have an opportunity to support presentations or publications that arise outside of the timeline of this current project.

 

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