Source: TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY submitted to NRP
OPTIMIZING CHILDRENS' MENTAL HEALTH RURAL POSITIVE BEHAVIOR SUPPORT PROJECT: A PUBLIC HEALTH APPROACH
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1001380
Grant No.
2013-46100-21541
Cumulative Award Amt.
$195,261.00
Proposal No.
2013-05869
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2013
Project End Date
Aug 31, 2015
Grant Year
2013
Program Code
[LX]- Rural Health & Safety Education
Recipient Organization
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
750 AGRONOMY RD STE 2701
COLLEGE STATION,TX 77843-0001
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Behavior problems of young children in child care settings have become an escalating problem for providers and families alike. At the same time child care providers have little experience, education and training related to enhancing children's mental health and dealing with children challenging behaviors. The Optimizing Children's Mental Health - Rural Positive Behavior Support (R-PBS) Project will develop, pilot and evaluate an early childhood professional development model utilizing positive behavior support techniques to optimize rural children positive mental health and support those with challenging behaviors. The project will create and adapt training materials, provide support and consultation to rural child care providers to promote children's positive mental health, and address challenging behaviors and enact positive behavior strategies that address child problem behaviors. Early childhood educators will participate in a Professional Learning Community (PLC) designed to improve their knowledge and skills and will be provided consultation through a Positive Behavior Support Team. Two methods (face-to-face, online) of training, support and consultation will be compared. The pilot will assess the project's multi-method intervention, professional learning community approach and provide evaluation data for future grant applications. The R-PBS is a transformational extension project that assists rural communities in addressing fundamental needs of providing safe, nurturing child care environments that create thriving communities now and in the future.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
80260103020100%
Knowledge Area
802 - Human Development and Family Well-Being;

Subject Of Investigation
6010 - Individuals;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education;
Goals / Objectives
The overall goal of the Optimizing Children's Mental Health Rural Positive Behavior Support (R-PBS) Project: A Public Health Approach is to utilize positive behavior support concepts, strategies and techniques to optimize rural children positive mental health and support those with challenging behaviors in rural early childhood settings. The R-PBS Project is a transformational Extension project that proactively assists rural communities in providing safe, nurturing childcare environments that build resilient children and helps to create thriving rural communities now and in the future. The objectives of the project are to: Increase childcare provider awareness and knowledge regarding early childhood mental health from a public health approach. Increase childcare providers' awareness, and knowledge regarding Positive Behavior Support concepts, strategies, and environments Decrease Negative Behavior incidences for children at participating childcare centers Improve early childhood educators' self-efficacy in supporting children's social-emotional development, and Assess the project's multi-method intervention, PLC approach which will yield evaluation data for future grant applications.
Project Methods
The project will occur over a calendar year and will provide 8 hours of training to participating rural childcare centers. Center serves approximately 75-100 children, has 2 administrators and employs 10-12 childcare providers. Utilizing the training as a foundation, project staff will assist centers to implement program-wide positive behavior supports. The project will utilize two methods of delivery, face-to-face and online. Module content will be the same throughout each method of delivery. The project will utilize adapted Social and Emotional curriculum for Early Learning to training childcare providers face-to-face and online. The delivery phase will utilize pre/post knowledge gain to measures to determine educational growth of the childcare providers in training area. T-test scores will be derived and compared across centers to determine statistical significance of educational gain differences based on delivery method. To assess the pre-post Professional Leaning Community effectiveness related to childcare educator self-efficacy and will be measured by a adapt The Teachers' Sense of Self-Efficacy Scale. The instrument measures teachers' self-efficacy with regard to engaging, instructing, and managing students. PreSET will be utilized to measure the center-wide implementation of the positive behavior support program. The PreSET assesses classroom and program-wide variables across nine categories.

Progress 09/01/13 to 08/31/15

Outputs
Target Audience:Early childhood educators of children 0-5 years of age. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Positive Behavior Supports training for early childhood professionals was offered. The instructional modules included the training on the topics of Leadership Strategies for Supporting Children's Social and Emotional Development and Addressing Challenging Behavior, Promoting Children's Success: Building Relationships and Creating Supportive Environments, Social-Emotional Teaching Strategies, Individualized Intensive Interventions: Determining the Meaning of Challenging Behavior & Individualized Intensive Interventions: Developing a Behavior Support Plan How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results of the project have been shared with the participating child care centers and plans are to complete a manuscript for submission on the results of the overall project and implications for practice. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? TRAINING A total of fifty three childcare staff and directors were trained. Twenty-seven childcare staff were trained face-to-face and twenty-six staff members were trained online. Statistics for the pre/post assessments are listed below. TWO HOUR DIRECTOR TRAINING Type Number Type Pre Post Director's Training 3 On-line 55% 83% Director's Training 5 Face to Face 59% 91% FOUR HOUR DIRECTOR AND STAFF TRAINING Type Number Type Pre Post Staff Training 26 On-line 58% 95% Staff Training 27 Face to Face 45% 85% EVALUATION : The Pre-SET was utilized as a pre/post measure of the childcare centers' abilities to implement positive behavior support system wide. Centers were assessed at the classroom and system wide levels. Classrooms were assessed on items regarding the documentation of classroom rules (e.g., a rules poster hanging in the classroom), as well as behavioral expectations taught, which included items related to teachers' planning and execution of lessons to teach expectations (e.g., a lesson plan, children able to state the rules when interviewed). Systems-level practices which included items related to taking data on children's problem behavior, and items related to support providing a team focused approach on addressing PBS goals through-out the year in staff meetings and for individual teachers. FCS Extension Agents were utilized to administer and collect the data for the Pre-SET to achieve non-prejudice assessment results. Prior to training and implementation of the PBS strategies, classroom teachers began to utilizing the behavior checklist to establish behavior patterns and incidences baselines. With the implementation of phase one of the PBS training, behavior incidences were reduced significantly overtime (8.3 incidences a day to 2.3 incidences a day overall) in all but one childcare center. Childcare workers self-efficacy scores increased significantly as well (see table below). Item Scale Values Average Rating on 9-Point Scale-Pre N=59 Average Rating on 9-Point Scale Post N=53 How much can you do to control disruptive behavior in the classroom 1=Nothing 9=A Great Deal 4.66 8.32 How much can you do to motivate students who show low interest 1=Nothing 9=A Great Deal 4.52 9.25 How much can you do to get students to believe they can do well in school 1=Nothing 9=A Great Deal 4.60 7.36 How much can you do to help you students value learning 1=Nothing 9=A Great Deal 4.70 8.66 To what extent can you craft good questions for your students 1=Nothing 9=A Great Deal 6.80 7.93 How much can you do to get children to follow classroom rules 1=Nothing 9=A Great Deal 5.26 9.60 How much can you do to calm a student who is disruptive or noisy 1=Nothing 9=A Great Deal 4.70 8.91 How well can you establish a classroom management system with each group of students 1=Nothing 9=A Great Deal 6.92 9.15 How much can you use a variety of assessment strategies (to determine the function of the behavior) 1=Nothing 9=A Great Deal 3.62 9.63 To what extent can you provide an alternative explanation or example when students are confused (about the rules and procedures of the classroom) 1=Nothing 9=A Great Deal 5.83 8.73 How much can you assist families in helping their children do well in school 1=Nothing 9=A Great Deal 4.36 7.28 How well can you implement alternative strategies (PBS) in your classroom 1=Nothing 9=A Great Deal 3.28 8.36 Phase two training has been completed, which included information on Individualized Intensive Interventions: Determining the Meaning of Challenging Behavior & Individualized Intensive Interventions: Developing a Behavior Support Plan implementation. This phase is still in progress with centers and technical assistance team working to develop individual behavior plans for students not responding to the PBS supports. The multi-method (face-to-face vs online) were both effective as professional development for early childhood professionals with increases knowledge and implementation regarding Positive Behavior Supports in their centers and classrooms. Childcare professionals also increased their self-efficacy from pre-test to post-test in dealing with child behavior.

Publications

  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Education lessons on social and emotional development for early childhood educators. Lessons were taught face-to-face and online.