Collaboration with Urban Community Stakeholders: Refining Paraprofessional‐led Services to Promote Positive Parenting

Abstract

Highlights• Partners engaged in an intentional process of relationship building to build a strong sense of trust.• Engaging staff who bridged organizational and practice contexts was key for intervention development.• Identifying, and building on, the strengths of the paraprofessional workforce was a primary focus.• Ensuring all stakeholders provided input into the development of the service model was vital.• Creating mechanisms for communication across multiple levels of the organization was critical.Abstract This paper describes the process of a community-academic partnership to navigate implementation challenges for a school-based service model led by paraprofessionals to promote positive parenting in high poverty urban communities. We describe the process by which we (a) identified implementation challenges, (b) sustained a university-community collaboration to redesign the paraprofessional service model, and (c) assessed the feasibility of the new model involving four social service agencies in 16 schools with over 600 families. The structure and process of the collaboration and refinement are described with attention to who was best positioned to engage in the collaboration and how the partnership worked to balance scientific rigor with responsiveness to paraprofessional workforce strengths. Feasibility data indicated that the revised model was successfully implemented by paraprofessional staff; 92.2% of possible staff monthly reports were completed and discussion of key goals was incorporated into 94.2% of interactions. Continual monitoring provided critical feedback from stakeholders as we drew on and interpreted these various sources of information to build and refine the service model. We suggest that these processes are critical steps to bridge the research-to-practice gap, by promoting practices that are aligned with the needs of children and families, and the staff who serve them.

A Team-Based Collaborative Care Model for Youth With Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Education and Health Care Settings

“…The first area concerns the effectiveness of teams, particularly in low-income settings, given the tremendous heterogeneity in their composition and leadership. Although they do not typically serve as members of education or primary health care teams, promising research reveals that community health workers can serve as effective advocates and liasions for children and families with the school and the primary care physician’s office (Mehta et al, 2019; Power et al, 2014). Embedding these paraprofessionals within the school and/or health care team to provide case management and behavioral support for parents and children is likely to enhance youth positive behavior and academic engagement, particularly in low-income communities (Mehta et al, 2019).…”

“…Although they do not typically serve as members of education or primary health care teams, promising research reveals that community health workers can serve as effective advocates and liasions for children and families with the school and the primary care physician’s office (Mehta et al, 2019; Power et al, 2014). Embedding these paraprofessionals within the school and/or health care team to provide case management and behavioral support for parents and children is likely to enhance youth positive behavior and academic engagement, particularly in low-income communities (Mehta et al, 2019). Developing relationships with community health care workers employed in federally funded health centers serving families in low-income communities is an area of further research for the TBCCM.…”

A Community‐Based Organization Model to Promote Latinx Immigrant Mental Health Through Advocacy Skills and Universal Parenting Supports

“…FMHA orients CBO staff to issues of inequity that affect the mental health of immigrant families while focusing on universally applicable, non-stigmatizing messages that can help mitigate these effects. This family resilience framework is designed to support CBO staff in their daily work with immigrant families by using key elements of two evidence-based models: one focused on parenting support strategies (Partners Achieving Student Success-PASS; Mehta et al, 2019) and the other to promote self-advocacy skills (Community Advocacy Project-CAP; Sullivan & Bybee, 1999). We propose that combining components of CAP and PASS aligns mental health promotion with the advocacy mission of CBOs, engages CBO staff in feasible mental health "messaging" with parents, and empowers immigrant parents as critical change agents in the lives of their children.…”

“…FMHA focuses on the acquisition of knowledge and skills development to help CBO staff promote positive parenting skills based on the PASS model (Mehta et al, 2019) and parent self-advocacy skills based on the CAP model (Sullivan & Bybee, 1999). These components focus on strengthening CBO staff skills and knowledge about PASS key skills, while also reviewing steps to collaboration with parents to identify concerns and needs, set goals and action plans, and monitor progress.…”

A qualitative study to explore paraprofessionals’ role in school‐based prevention and early intervention mental health services

“…PASS was collaboratively developed through a community partnership with four social service agencies and providers (SFL training, program development, and services are described in Mehta et al, manuscript submitted for review 2018). SFLs were full-time employees of the agencies and supervised by master's level clinicians.…”