This study will test how well a mindfulness-based intervention called CHIME improves the emotional well-being of educators in Early Head Start and Head Start (EHS/HS) settings. The study also will examine if there are any benefits to young children's social emotional health as a result of the CHIME program. Researchers will compare educators who participate in CHIME to educators who are asked to participate at a later time to see if there are benefits to their emotional health and teaching practices.
To address the critical need of supporting Early Head Start/Head Start (EHS/HS) education staff well-being, investigators are collaborating with EHS/HS programs to co-refine and adapt a new mindfulness-based intervention (MBI), Cultivating Healthy Intentional Mindful Educators (CHIME-HS), to make the intervention effective and internally sustainable for EHS/HS programs. Small studies with CHIME in general early care and education settings provide a proof of concept of its effectiveness, with educators reporting enhanced well-being and reduced workplace burnout. However, CHIME has not been adapted for or rigorously tested in EHS/HS settings. Building on promising evidence for the efficacy of CHIME, investigators partnered with EHS/HS programs to gather feedback from EHS and HS staff and families about how to refine CHIME to best address their needs, and determine CHIME's feasibility, acceptability, and fidelity within the EHS/HS context. In this way, investigators will maximize CHIME's acceptability, feasibility, and sustainability specifically for the unique needs of the HS/EHS start community. Investigators draw upon tenets of community-engaged research to co-refine and adapt the program to address EHS/HS education staff's well-being more effectively, and with sustainability in mind. After investigators refine CHIME in phase 1, investigators will work with EHS/HS partners to coordinate a rigorous, multi-method approach to evaluate the efficacy of CHIME with 120 EHS/HS education staff and 730 children/families (Phase 2). Investigators will also interview 10 directors and assistant EHS/HS directors to identify barriers and facilitators to implementation and to put in place effective mechanisms to support the sustainability of CHIME-HS (Phase 3). Through the iterative development and refinement of the facilitator training, investigators will determine if trained EHS/HS staff can effectively implement CHIME with fidelity for promoting EHS/HS education staff emotional well-being and workplace engagement, decreasing their physiological and emotional reactivity, promoting positive teaching practices, strengthening family partnerships, and promoting young children's social skills and self-regulation. Additionally, investigators will engage with other Early Head Start/Head Start University Partnership (HSUP) grantees during the yearly grantee workshop to share lessons learned, identify opportunities for collaborative analyses, and create shared dissemination products. A variety of dissemination efforts will be utilized to make findings from the study accessible to multiple audiences invested in EHS and HS populations. Dissemination products will include the CHIME-HS intervention, its promise for improving education staff well-being, outcomes, and lessons learned about implementation, including usability, feasibility, and cost. Investigators will work cooperatively with the consortium to disseminate policy findings recognizing that collective presentation and publication of findings can concentrate the impact.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
571
The 8-week, manualized, CHIME intervention consists of a 2-hour overview and seven weekly sessions, each lasting 90 minutes. Each CHIME session focuses on a specific mindfulness technique, such as mindful breathing, mindful listening and bringing attention to current states and surroundings to support optimal responsiveness, emotion regulation, and compassion. Social emotional learning is promoted by focusing on five broad competencies: self-awareness, social awareness, responsible decision-making, self-management, and relationship skills and these competencies are practiced and developed through small group discussions, storytelling, journal reflections, modeling, and guided awareness (e.g., meditations), and implementation activities (e.g., gratitude necklace).
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, Nebraska, United States
Change in Teacher Emotion Regulation Difficulties from baseline to post assessments
Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
Change in Teacher Adaptive Emotion Regulation from baseline to post assessments
Emotion Regulation Questionnaire - Reappraisal scale
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
Change in Teacher Self-Compassion from baseline to post assessments
Self-Compassion Scale
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
Change in Teacher Workplace Stress from baseline to post assessments
NIOSH Worker Wellbeing Questionnaire
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
Change in Teacher Mental Well-Being from baseline to post assessments
Warkwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale measures perceptions of overall mental well-being
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
Change in Educator heart rate variability from baseline to post assessments
Actihearts worn in the classroom
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
Change in Teacher Depressive Symptoms from baseline to post assessments
Center for Epidemiological Depression - Short From measuring depressive symptoms
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
Change Teaching Practices from baseline to post assessments
Educator scores on the CLASS Observation Emotional Support Scale measuring the teachers emotional support for all the children in the classroom
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
Change in Teaching Practices from baseline to post assessments
Caregiver Interaction Scale that measures the interactions between the participating educator and a target child in the classroom.
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
Change in Child Social Skills from baseline to post assessments
Child Social Skills Improvement System Socio-Emotional Learning Brief that measures social-emotional competencies
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
Change in Child Self-Regulation Skills from baseline to post assessments
child self-regulation task scores from a puppet task administered with a trained researcher
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
Change in Perceived Family and Teacher Relationships from baseline to post assessments
a measure of tahe quality of the relationship between the main primary caregiver and the teacher/educator) (Family and Provider Relationship Quality; Kim, 2012)
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
Change in Child Social Skills from baseline to post assessments
Devereux Early Childhood Assessment which is a behavior rating scale that is completed by parents and/or caregivers or teachers which provides an assessment of within-child protective factors central to social and emotional health and resilience.
Time frame: Baseline, a post-assessment 8 weeks after the intervention or waitlist period, and a follow-up assessment after 3 months.
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