The Impact of Parent Coach Professional Development on the Clinical Practice of Early Interventionists

Abstract

Early childhood organizations and funders highlight the crucial role of Early Intervention (EI) service providers in empowering families to support children with developmental delays. Research underscores the significance of training and coaching for parents’ skill development (Dunst & Trivette, 2009; Fixsen et al., 2005). However, researchers often train or coach caregivers in efficacy studies, ignoring community-based EI providers as natural change agents. To put effective programs into common use, we must attend to developing the coaching skills of EI providers (p. xiii, Odom, 2013) because, despite its emerging popularity, the use of parent coaching (PC) among (EI) professionals has been inconsistent to date (Douglas et al., 2020; Meaden et al., 2017). Many factors contribute to the poor uptake of parent coaching, including inadequate Professional Development (PD) opportunities (Douglas et al., 2020; Williams & Sawyer, 2023). Given the limited literature on PD for PC, this dissertation aims to present a detailed PD model for learning PC skills called Relationship Strength-based (RSB) coaching and a study evaluating its effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability. This dissertation is written in paper-based style, with Chapters two, three, and four prepared for publication. Chapter one introduces the purpose and organization of the dissertation; chapter two presents a detailed PD model of RSB Coaching. Chapter three provides a case study of RSB coaching and is a practical resource for early interventionists and others working with young children with disabilities. It has been submitted to Young Exceptional Children. Chapter four describes a study evaluating the effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of the RSB PD with nine in-service EIs. All nine participants improved their PC skills, found the training useful to their EI practices, and indicated their intent to use coaching in their future EI work. The feasibility of implementing a ten-month PD program was challenging for the community organization, and considerations to make the PD more feasible are examined. Finally, Chapter Five summarizes the research program, detailing the contributions, limitations, and future directions.