Abstract
BackgroundIn the early years of life, the benefits of parental engagement in children’s learning are well documented. Early childhood educators are a potentially effective source of support, having opportunity to engage with parents on key issues related to children’s learning and development. Educators report a need for more practical strategies for building positive partnerships with the parents of children in their care. To address this need, we have developed a practice support system, Partnering with Parents, to guide educators in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) through practical strategies for working with parents. Partnering with Parents is designed to be embedded in everyday service delivery.MethodsUsing a cluster randomised controlled trial (cRCT) with intervention and wait-list control groups, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness of the Partnering with Parents practice support system under normal service conditions. The intervention is being trialled in ECEC services across Victoria, Australia. Services in the intervention group implemented the 10-week intervention before the control group commenced the intervention. Educators and parents of children attending the participating services are taking part in evaluating the intervention by completing questionnaires online at three time points (before, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention group received the intervention).ResultsOne hundred eighteen educators and 302 parents recruited from 19 participating ECEC services have consented to take part in the trial.ConclusionsThere is considerable potential for ECEC services to improve everyday interactions with parents and potentially child outcomes, by implementing this practice support model. Future research in this field can examine long-term effects of improving the parent-educator relationship. The intervention has potential to be widely embedded in educator training or professional development.Trial registrationAustralian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR): ACTRN12619000488101. Prospectively registered 25 March 2019.
Highlights
In the early years of life, the benefits of parental engagement in children’s learning are well documented
Educators in early childhood education and care (ECEC) services are well placed to play an important role in supporting parents1 to navigate common, everyday challenges in raising children
We developed a practice support system, Partnering with Parents, for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) educators to guide them through practical strategies for working collaboratively with parents
Summary
Trial design The trial is a cluster randomised controlled trial (cRCT) with two groups, an intervention and a waitlist control group. Consent and recruitment Managers from eligible services signed formal agreements to undertake the implementation of Partnering with Parents throughout their service and agreed to be randomly allocated to commence as a part of either the intervention or wait-list control This formal agreement stipulated that the service would support the Parenting Research Centre (PRC) to invite individual educators and parents to complete three anonymous online questionnaires throughout the trial. We will undertake exploratory analyses of the following possible interactions to assess whether the effect of the Partnering with Parents practice support system intervention is modified by factors such as the experience of carers, or number of children under the educators’ care These analyses will inform the choice of moderators for the analysis described below.
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