Susan M. Sheridan - US grants

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This study will investigate the effects of a comprehensive intervention that integrates parent engagement and relationship components into a community-based early education program for children aged 0-5. It integrates a strong conceptual basis focusing on the context of dose relationships, and innovative service delivery models of consultation (triadic, McCollum & Yates, 1994; and conjoint, Sheridan, Kratochwill, & Bergan, 1996) in an intervention that addresses both child learning and parent engagement. The objective of this application is to carefully evaluate the overall benefits of a multicomponent child- and parent-focused intervention that addresses both home and center/school environments, and is designed to improve the skills of intervention agents to increase early and sustained parent engagement across multiple social and learning contexts. It includes the development of relationships within the home system (i.e., between the parent and child) and continued engagement in the child's learning and performance as s/he enters formal schooling environments. Specific research aims are to: (1) evaluate the effects of an innovative, comprehensive service delivery system on child cognitive, behavioral, and socioemotional outcomes, in comparison to the present conventional system for children under 5 years of age; (2) assess the impact of the proposed comprehensive intervention on parental engagement (i.e., warmth/sensitivity, support for child's autonomy, and active participation in learning and literacy); and (3) evaluate the extent to which child outcomes are mediated by changes in parental engagement. To address the extent to which children's cognitive, socioemotional, and behavioral functioning and parent engagement can be enhanced by the proposed intervention, we plan a randomized design to evaluate its impact on key outcomes predictive of school success. Additional analyses will specifically examine: (1) what child and family factors modify the intervention; (2) what components of the intervention, especially its timing at the ages of 0-3 versus 3-5, affect the outcome; and (3) the longitudinal pattern of change within each child. The approach is designed to advance the research base from one that focuses simply on "child readiness" for school to one that addresses "parent and child readiness" to engage in schooling across the early childhood spectrum and transitions across contexts. We plan to model the between-groups and within-child trajectories to better understand the timing and nature of changes indicating school readiness. Outcomes will be measured through standardized, validated instruments and observations of parent-child relationships.

Families and schools -- uniquely and together -- represent the most critical, important systems in the learning and development of children and adolescents. The degree to which students experience congruent and consistent messages and support across systems contributes to important academic and social-emotional outcomes. Efforts to address problems separately, in the absence of continuity between systems, reduce our capacity to intervene in ways that fully develop children's social and behavioral competence, especially for those at greatest risk. Collaborative partnerships between home and school systems are related to positive growth, development, and learning throughout the formative years. Unfortunately, families of students at risk of developing serious problems often are poorly connected with schools, and families and school personnel often work in isolation from one another, with only infrequent, brief, and nonconstructive interactions. Furthermore, although a fair amount of current research has identified what influences family-school partnerships, much less is known about the translation of these findings into meaningful programs. This gap between research and practice is due in part to the lack of systematic interaction among researchers in distinct research laboratories, with some researchers doing extensive theoretical work, some doing work with diverse families, some using specific targeted interventions, and others approaching their work by developmental level. This seminal conference, hosted by the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools (CYFS) in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will bring together and foster linkages among researchers to create new, coordinated understandings of methods to conceptualize and study processes and outcomes of family-school partnerships. Specifically, the meeting will bring together leading social and behavioral scientists in overlapping research communities representing expertise in family-school partnerships, consultation-based service delivery, child and adolescent development and cognition, and research methodology. Four interrelated thematic strands will provide structure and content to the meeting: (a) methods to foster achievement with culturally and geographically diverse students and approaches to engage parents and schools in methods to close the achievement gap for students at risk; (b) strengthening the home learning environment (i.e., the "curriculum of the home"); (c) methods to engage parents/families and schools across content areas (e.g., math, science, and social-emotional learning); and (d) methodological approaches.

The significance of the conference is grounded in the formation of an interdisciplinary coalition for research on family-school partnerships. The main objective of this coalition is to develop a national research agenda to enhance the scientific understanding of variables and outcomes associated with family-school engagement and partnerships, and advance sophisticated methods to empirically test intervention programs to facilitate family-school partnerships. The workshop will enhance mutual understanding among participating researchers and stimulate research collaborations. It will foster the identification of critical research needs and methods to address research gaps and new directions. A final consensus report will be a multi-faceted research agenda with sample research questions representing multiple perspectives, a strategic approach, and methodological soundness. In addition, a major outcome of the workshop will be a series of edited books, focusing on each of the workshop's thematic areas. The series will complement existing publications through its articulation of state of the art, methodologically rigorous research in the area of family-school partnerships and prioritized research needs and directions.