Washington State has been utilizing a new and unique way to
support healthy brain development of young children and positive relationships
between children and their caregivers. It’s a video coaching program that uses the
concept of serve and return interactions, called Filming Interactions to Nurture
Development (FIND). Dr.
Phil Fisher and his colleagues at the University of Oregon developed the FIND
model to support interactions between one caregiver and one child. The FIND development team at the University
of Oregon, the Washington State Department of Early Learning and Children’s
Home Society of Washington, have co-created a model of FIND for use in early
childhood settings.
FIND was developed as part of the Frontiers of Innovation at the
Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, and is an example of
putting researchers and practitioners together to advance science-based
innovations that can be expanded to serve more young children and families.
What is FIND?
Coaches trained in FIND film interactions between the child and
their caregiver for 10 minutes as they engage in everyday activities such as
playing a game or having a snack. Films are edited into short clips by a team
at CHSW. After editing, a FIND coach shows the caregiver the video of positive
interactions with a child. Coaches emphasize the caregivers’ strengths and
understanding of how engaging positively with the child promotes positive brain
development.
Expanding FIND around the state
In 2013, FIND was implemented in a licensed family child care home
in Richland, Washington called “Hope for the Future Childcare.” This
small-scale road test demonstrated the feasibility and utility of implementing
FIND in the context of child care.
Targeted FIND coaching for infant-toddler caregivers was conducted
in a larger pilot in 2015 with 16 child care providers in one region of the
state. The goal of the pilot was to
demonstrate that FIND could be used in formal child care and early learning
settings. Positive outcomes from the pilot resulted in DEL implementing FIND across
the state as part of Washington State’s child care quality rating and
improvement system (QRIS), Early Achievers.
Adding FIND to Early Achievers will help to improve the quality of child
care for infants and toddlers.
In order to increase the amount of FIND coaching, in January 2016,
four randomly selected regions of the state began FIND with infant-toddler
classrooms. The remaining six regions began implementation in July 2016. During
the first year of FIND coaching, 189 caregivers completed the FIND program. The impact can be heard in this quote from a
teacher “I realized that my work with infants and toddlers has a big impact on
their development and their future. I want every infant-toddler teacher to take
this coaching.”
The project also involves training and certification of regional infant
toddler consultants as FIND coaches who support child care providers through
the state. Twenty-one FIND coaches were trained in coordination with the FIND development
team at University of Oregon and Children’s Home Society of Washington.
Data collection during the first year of FIND was completed and is
currently being analyzed by the FIND Development Team at the University of
Oregon and researchers at the University of Washington.
To read a set of case studies from this evaluation, click here: To read a full summary of all of the FIND initiatives, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment