Head Start University Partnerships: Building the Evidence Base for ECE Workforce Well-Being

The overall goal of these Head Start University Partnership grants, awarded in 2021, is to contribute to the knowledge base regarding the individual, program, and community factors that promote the well-being of Head Start and/or Early Head Start education staff (i.e., teachers and assistant teachers). Researchers are working in partnership with one or more Head Start programs. Together, they will identify and evaluate promising approaches to improving education staff well-being that are supported by existing research and evidence-based theory of change models. Each grantee will conduct an implementation study and causally evaluate the effectiveness of the approach(es) identified using the most rigorous research designs, methods, and analytic techniques that are appropriate and sufficient to address the research questions of interest. Further, each grantee will examine individual, program, and community context factors that contribute to education staff well-being, and they will work together to develop common conceptual frameworks and coordinated measurement plans. Results of these studies are expected to provide valuable information that can help guide programs in their decisions regarding strategies for improving education staff well-being.  

2021 Grant Recipients

Georgetown University

Principal Investigator: Celene Domitrovich

Co-Principal Investigators: Dominique Charlot-Swilly, Arrealia Gavins, Brenda Jones Harden, and Yibing Li

Project Title: The Promoting Resilience and Mental Health in Educational Settings for Early Childhood (PROMISE) Project

Project Abstract: The goal of this project is to implement and examine the effects of a comprehensive intervention that addresses education staff well-being. The intervention selected for this project has three components: a wellness program targeted at individual education staff (TeacherWise), a group-based well-being program designed to promote education staff wellness and resilience (Compassion Practice Restoration and Relationship - CPR2), and a group-based quality improvement technique paired with peer mentoring aimed at program leaders (the State Early Essentials Technical Assistance). The project will include a pilot year in which the intervention will be implemented in four to eight programs followed by a larger randomized control trial that will include 30 programs. This larger implementation study will seek to confirm the intervention’s theory of change, examine the impact of the intervention on both proximal and distal outcomes, and identify factors that predict engagement with the intervention. During the concluding years of the project, the investigators will develop a program manual as well as a sustainable training and technical assistance model to sustain the intervention beyond the end of the grant.

Sample: The feasibility pilot will involve between one and two centers from each of the four Early Head Start (EHS) partner sites for a total of five centers. The impact study will involve 30 centers from the same four EHS sites. Centers will be grouped based on grantee agency, setting (e.g. community-based center or school), total capacity, location in public housing, proportion of dual language learners, and proportion of children of color, and will then be randomized either to the intervention or to a business-as-usual control group. All centers are located in Washington, DC.

Proposed Measures:

Predictors:

  • Demographic Characteristics
    • Age
    • Gender
    • Racial/ethnic background
    • Primary language
  • Professional Characteristics
    • Education
    • Credential attainment
    • Current role
    • Prior professional experience in ECE
  • Economic Hardship
    • Scale of 7 items
  • Community Risk
    • Perceived crime subscale of the Perceived Neighborhood Scale

Staff Outcomes:

  • Self-Awareness
    • Self-Compassion Scale — Short Form
    • Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire
  • Social Emotional Competencies
    • Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale
    • Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Scale
    • Emotion Recognition Questionnaire
    • Compassion Satisfaction subscale of the Professional Quality of Life
  • Emotional Distress
    • Job Content Questionnaire
    • Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)
  • Social Support
    • Job Support scale of the Job Content Questionnaire
  • Job Satisfaction
    • Work Attitudes Questionnaire
  • Resilience
    • Connor Davidson Resilience Scale 
  • Physical and Mental Health
    • 9-item health questionnaire
    • Center for Epidemiological Studies — Depression Scale (CESD)
    • Day Reconstruction Method (for sleep quantity and quality) 

Classroom and Program Outcomes:

  • Organizational Capacity
    • The Essential 0-5 Survey 
    • Early Childhood Work Environment Survey — Short Form
  • Wellness Culture
    • Teacher Beliefs Scale

University of Virginia

Principal Investigator: Lieny Jeon

Co-Principal Investigator: Amy Roberts

Project Title: Well-Being First: Culturally Sensitive Approach for Head Start Teachers' Holistic Well-Being

Project Abstract: The goal of this project is to develop, refine, implement, and evaluate an intervention that addresses the well-being of the Head Start workforce at the individual and organizational levels. The intervention, “Well-Being First”, will be adapted from a variety of evidence-based strategies in education and human services and will include a series of trainings, collaborative group processing, leadership support, monthly consultation, and a well-being toolkit. The intervention will seek to strengthen resilience, improve the psychosocial work environment, and provide leadership support. The project will begin with a two-year period of development and refinement of the intervention that will include two pilot testing phases. The intervention will then be evaluated through a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) across 30 programs.

Sample: The first pilot phase will involve one Head Start program in Baltimore, Maryland from which approximately 10 education staff will be recruited for participation. The second pilot phase will occur across two programs with a goal of reaching 20 education staff. The RCT will involve 30 programs across four Head Start grantees in Baltimore, where more than half (55%) of kindergarteners receive free or reduced-price meals and only 26% of children who attended Head Start demonstrated being ready for school in 2019. Half of all programs in the sample will be randomly assigned to the intervention and the other half will receive business as usual professional development. The aim is to enroll 240 education staff and 60 support staff along with 2,160 children in the RCT.

Proposed Measures:

Predictors:

  • Demographic Characteristics
    • Age
    • Gender
    • Racial/ethnic background
    • Salary
  • Professional Characteristics
    • Education
    • Credential attainment
    • Current role
    • Prior professional experience in ECE
  • Classroom characteristics
    • Teacher-child ratio
  • Childhood experiences
    • Benevolent Childhood Experiences (BCEs)
    • Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

Staff Outcomes:

  • Resilience:
    • Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC)
  • Social-Emotional Competence
    • Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised (CAMS-R)
    • Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ)
  • Wellness Knowledge and Strategies
    • Physical Care subscale of the Mindful Self-Care Scale (MSCS)
    • Self-Care Practices Scale (SCPS)
    • Understanding of Stress and Stress-Reduction Scale
  • Coping
    • Subscales from the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced Inventory (COPE)
  • Job-related exhaustion, satisfaction
    • Emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction
  • Burnout
    • Professional Quality of Life: Compassion Satisfaction and Fatigue Version 5 (ProQOL)
  • Turnover
  • Mental Health
    • Center for Epidemiological Studies — Depression (CES-D)
    • Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)

Classroom and Program Outcomes:

  • Teacher-Child Relationships
    • Student Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS)
  • Classroom Management Efficacy
    • Ohio State teacher efficacy scale (OSTES)
  • Classroom Quality
    • Classroom Assessment Scoring System Pre-K (CLASS)
  • Leadership Support
    • Director’s Leadership Style Questionnaire (DLS
  • Relationships
    • Teacher’s Sense of the School as Community Questionnaire
    • Supportive Parent-Caregiver Relationship Scale
  • Workplace Safety
    • Georgia Elementary School Climate Survey, adapted
  • Inclusive and Equitable Workplace
    • Diversity Climate Scale

Child Outcomes:

  • Early Learning
    • Early Learning Assessment (ELA)

University of Colorado Denver

Principal Investigators: Jini Puma and Charlotte Farewell

Project Title: Well-being of the ECE Workforce Working in Low-Resourced Locations (WELL)

Project Abstract:

The overarching goals of the Well-being of the ECE Workforce in Low-Resourced Locations (WELL) study are to investigate individual-, interpersonal-, and systems-level factors that are most strongly associated with worker well-being in Head Start settings; to implement the WELL intervention, a multi-level, multi-strategy intervention, via partnerships with five large Head Start agencies in Colorado; and to assess the intervention’s implementation and effectiveness to improve worker well-being. The project will include a stepped wedge cluster randomized control trial (RCT) to examine the effectiveness of the WELL intervention as well as the implementation factors that support fidelity to the intervention.

Sample: The RCT will involve 36 programs from five Head Start agencies serving low-resources families in both urban and rural counties across Colorado. The study will seek to enroll 360 staff from a population of early educators in which about half (48%) have a postsecondary or advanced degree and a third receive public assistance benefits restricted to very low-income families. Moreover, about half (57%) of educators in the sample are expected to identify as white and a third (33%) as Hispanic. Head Start centers will be stratified by size and then randomized to one of three groups, each of which will implement the WELL intervention in different years of the grant.

Proposed Measures:

Predictors:

  • Demographic Characteristics
  • Program Characteristics
    • Head Start center demographics

Staff Outcomes:

  • Well-Being
    • NIOSH Worker Well-being Questionnaire (WellBQ)
  • Burnout
    • Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES)
  • Turnover Intent
    • Turnover Intention Scale

Classroom and Program Outcomes:

  • Teacher-Child Relationships
    • Student Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS)
    • Caregiver-Child Social/Emotional and Relationship Rating Scale (CCSERRS)
  • Workforce Turnover
    • Administrative data

Child Outcomes:

  • Social-Emotional Learning
    • Social Skills Improvement System — Social-Emotional (SSIS-SE) instrument

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Principal Investigator: Holly Hatton-Bowers

Co-Principal Investigators: Carrie Clark and Lisa Knoche

Co-Investigators: Sue Sheridan, Lorey Wheeler, and Gilbert Parra

Consultant: Michael Yellow Bird

Title: Cultivating Healthy Intentional Mindful Educators (CHIME): Evaluating the Use of Mindfulness and Compassion to Promote Early Head Start/Head Start Education Staff Well-Being

Project Abstract: The goal of this project is to refine and adapt a mindfulness-based intervention, Cultivating Healthy Intentional Mindful Educators (CHIME), for the Early Head Start/Head Start (EHS/HS) workforce and examine the efficacy of the intervention. In CHIME, educators participate in facilitated reflection as well as mindfulness and compassion-based activities over an 8-week period. Through facilitators, materials, and activities, education staff gain knowledge about social-emotional learning (SEL) and acquire strategies for recognizing and responding to emotion in the classroom. Families will also receive information about these mindfulness and compassion-based practices each week. During the first phase of the project, investigators and their EHS/HS partners will refine and adapt the CHIME intervention for the EHS/HS community and conduct a pilot study drawing upon tenets of community-engaged research. Phase two will include a cluster randomized control trial (RCT) of the adapted intervention with 120 education staff and 360 children and their families. In the final phase of the project, investigators will interview 10 directors and assistant directors to identify barriers and facilitators to implementation of the intervention and put in place effective mechanisms to support the sustainability of the intervention beyond the conclusion of the grant.

Sample: The pilot study will involve 15 education staff and 25 families. The RCT will involve 60 Early Head Start and 60 Head Start education staff as well as 320 children between 0-5 years and their families from five centers across Nebraska, Washington, Minnesota, and Indiana. EHS/HS programs to be recruited into the study serve a diversity of families, including rural populations as well as immigrant, Native American, and refugee populations. In the RCT, half of the education staff will be randomly assigned to the CHIME intervention group and the other half to a wait-list control group. Following the RCT, 10 directors and assistant directors will participate in semi-structured interviews about implementation and sustainability.

Proposed Measures:

Covariates:

   Education Staff/Teacher:

  • Demographic Characteristics
    • Age
    • Household income-to-needs ratio
  • Professional Characteristics
    • Education
    • Prior professional experience in ECE
  • Stress and Resources
    • Life Stressors and Social Resources Inventory-Adult
  • Adult attachment
    • Relational History Scale

   Child and Family:

  • Parenting Stress (for children’s parents)
    • Parenting Stress Index-Short Form
  • Family Socio-demographic
    • Child age and gender
    • Parent education, income, family size

Staff Outcomes (Proximal Effects):

   Teacher Knowledge and Skills

  • Dispositional Mindfulness
    • Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised
  • Self-Compassion
    • Self-Compassion Scale (SCS)
  • SEL Beliefs and Knowledge
    • Teacher SEL Beliefs Scale, adapted
    • Social and Emotional Learning Knowledge Scale, adapted
  • Emotion and Physiological Regulation
    • Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-Short Form (DERS)
    • Emotion Stroop Task
    • Emotional Exogenous Spatial Cuing task
    • Hear Rate Variability through Actiheart monitor

    Well-being (mental and occupational)

  • Workplace Support
    • Early Childhood Job Attitude Survey
  • Burnout
    • Maslach Burnout Inventory for Educators
  • Mental Health
    • Center for Epidemiological Studies — Depression Scale (CESD)

Classroom and Program Outcomes:

  • Classroom Quality & Peer, Child to Child Interactions
    • Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS)
    • Caregiver Interaction Scale
  • Educator-Family Partnerships
    • Family and Provider/Teacher Relationship Quality Measure (FPTRQ)
  • Teacher-Child Relationships
    • Student-Teacher Relationships Scale (STRS)
    • Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS)

Child Outcomes (Distal):

  • Self-Regulation
    • Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment (BITSEA; for infants and toddlers)
    • Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Preschool (BRIEF-P; for preschoolers)
    • Inhibitory control and working memory direct assessments
  • Social and Behavioral Skills
    • Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS)

University of Oklahoma 

Principal Investigator: Kyong Ah Kwon

Co-Principal Investigators: Timothy Ford, Sherri Castle, Hongwu Wang, Mia Kile, and Jessica Tsotsoros

Co-Investigators: Seulki Rachel Jang, Ken Randall, Brenda Lloyd-Jones, Carolyn Cheema, and Yong Ju Jung 

Project Title: Happy Teacher Wellness Intervention: Creating a Culture of Head Start Staff Well-Being and Competence

Project Abstract: The goal of this project is to implement and examine the effects of the “Happy Teacher Wellness Intervention”, a ten-week tiered program designed to improve Head Start staff physical, psychological, and professional well-being and competence. The intervention includes self-guided online modules, an individualized wellness coaching model, and environmental and organizational supports, such as additional breaks, for teachers and leaders. During the first phase of the project, investigators will refine the conceptual framework for the intervention and develop a new comprehensive survey instrument to measure working conditions in Head Start. The second phase of the project will include the implementation of the intervention, first through a pilot study with three programs and then through a larger cluster randomized control trial (RCT) with 24 programs. 

Sample: A total of three programs, including 54 education staff and 12 leaders, from Tulsa and Oklahoma City are expected to participate in the pilot study. For the cluster RCT, programs from those same two cities are expected to participate in addition to programs from rural locales and Tribal Nations. In total, the goal is to reach 24 programs and recruit a total of 632 education staff and 96 leaders for the RCT. Each program participating in the cluster RCT will be randomly assigned to one of four conditions: control, intervention I, intervention II, and intervention III. All intervention groups will receive the same online modules but receipt of the coaching and supports aspects of the intervention will vary across these groups.

Proposed Measures:

Control and Predictor Variables:

  • Demographic Characteristics
    • Age
    • Race/ethnicity 
    • Gender
  • Working Conditions
    • Physical Job Demands
      • Physical Demand subscale of the Job Content Questionnaire
      • Analysis of Teacher’s Classroom Activities Checklist
    • Job Stressors
      • Job Demands scale of the Child Care Workers Job Stress Inventory
    • Challenge/Hindrance Stressors
      • Challenge and Hindrance-Related Self-Reported Stress Measures
    • Coworker Supports
      • Co-Worker Support items
    • Organizational Supports
      • Organizational Support items
    • Salary, Benefits, & Breaks
      • Survey items
    • Positive Work Climate
      • Early Childhood Work Environment Survey
    • Physical Environment
      • Environment Preference Index

Staff Outcomes:

  • Physical Wellness
    • Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders Scale
    • Body Mass Index (BMI)
    • Sleep (through wearable tool)
    • Physical activity (e.g., REBA, wearable)
  • Psychological Well-Being
    • Depressive Symptoms
      • Center for Epidemiological Studies — Depression Scale (CESD)
    • Stress
      • Perceived Stress Scale
      • Wearable tool
    • Secondary Trauma
      • Professional Quality of Life Scale
    • Hope
      • Dispositional Hope Scale
  • Professional Well-Being
    • Job Commitment
      • Early Childhood Job Satisfaction Survey on work commitment
    • Burnout
      • Maslach Burnout Inventory
    • Turnover Intent
      • Survey items

Classroom and Program Outcomes:

  • Teacher-Child Relationships
    • Student Teacher Relationships Scale-Short Form
  • Social-emotional Teaching Strategies
    • Adapted Teaching Strategies Rating Scale
  • Classroom Quality
    • Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) Infant, Toddler, and Pre-K
  • Workforce Turnover
    • Administrative data
  • Leadership Skills
    • Multifactor Leadership Q

Child Outcomes:

  • Behavioral problems & social competence
    • Devereux Early Childhood Assessment

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Principal Investigator: Yoonkyung Oh

Co-Principal Investigators: April Crawford

Project Title: Promoting the Social and Emotional Well-Being of Head Start and Early Head Start Education Staff through the Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE) Program

Project Abstract: The goal of this project is to evaluate the efficacy of the “Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education” (CARE) program in Head Start settings. Designed to improve teachers’ social and emotional well-being and enhance their capacity to create positive classroom climates for student learning and development, CARE has demonstrated its efficacy in elementary school settings. The CARE program involves three 6-hour in-person training sessions followed by a half-day online booster session with a focus on three elements including emotional skills training, mindfulness and stress management practices, and care and listening practices. During the first phase of the project, investigators will adapt and refine the CARE program to meet the needs of Head Start programs. The CARE program will then be implemented, and the effects of the program will be examined using a blocked cluster randomized control trial (RCT) with 60 Head Start programs and 300 teachers. The last phase of the project will include the development of a plan to sustain and replicate the CARE program beyond the completion of the grant.

Sample: The RCT will involve 60 Head Start centers located in Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas, the three largest metropolitan areas in Texas. Across these three cities, the median household income is about $52,000 and the percent of the population living in poverty ranges from 18 to 20%. The project will seek to recruit 300 teachers and 1,500 children (about 5 per teacher) across three cohorts from participating sites. Centers will be blocked by type of program (Head Start or Early Head Start within each agency) and then randomly assigned to the CARE intervention or a waitlist control condition.

Proposed Measures:

Predictors:

  • Demographic Characteristics
    • Race/ethnicity 
    • Gender
    • Marital status
    • Family size
    • Primary earner status
  • Professional Characteristics
    • Education
    • Prior professional experience in ECE
  • Program characteristics
    • Teacher-child ratio
    • Student enrollment
    • Number of education staff
    • Professional development supports
    • Turnover rate

Staff Outcomes:

  • Mental Health
    • Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8)
    • Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7)
    • International Positive and Negative Affect Rating Short Form (PANAS)
    • Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Sleep Disturbance Questionnaire (PROMIS-SD)
    • Time Urgency Scale (TUS)
  • Burnout
    • Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator Survey (MBI-ES)
  • Stress
    • Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)
  • Mindfulness
    • Five Fact Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ)
    • Mindfulness in Teaching Scale (MTS)
  • Adaptive Emotion Regulation
    • Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ)
  • Job Stressors and Confidence
    • Child Care Worker Job Stress Inventory (CCWJSI)
    • Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (TSES)

Classroom and Program Outcomes:

  • Teacher-Child Relationships
    • Student Teacher Relationships Scale-Short Form (STRS)
  • Classroom Quality
    • Arnett’s Caregiver Interaction Scale (CIS)
    • Teacher Behavior Rating Scales (TBRS)
    • Caregiver-Child Interaction (CCI) category from the Texas Quality Rating Improvement System

Child Outcomes:

  • Behavioral and Emotional Problems
    • Caregiver-Teacher Report Form (C-TRF)
  • School Attitudes and Engagement
    • School Liking and Avoidance Questionnaire for teachers (T-SLAQ)
    • School Liking and Avoidance Questionnaire for children (SLAQ)

The OPRE point of contact is Kathleen Dwyer.