Who Gets What? Describing the Non‐supervisory Training and Supports Received by Home Visiting Staff Members and its Relationship with Turnover

Abstract

Highlights• Technical assistance (TA) received by home visiting staff members differed based on staff members' characteristics.• Supervisors received more TA hours and more remote and individual TA compared to home visitors.• Home visitors more commonly participated in on-site trainings for multiple staff members.• TA received by staff members also differed by program characteristics including model, size, and maturity.• Characteristics of the TA that staff members received did not predict staff members' turnover.Abstract The early childhood home visiting field lacks a basic understanding of home visiting program staff members' receipt of on-the-job training from experts outside of their programs who are not their immediate colleagues or supervisors. To address this gap, we created a unique dataset by asking program leaders to log the external technical assistance (TA) that staff members received, and we collected a survey from 288 of the same staff members. We performed descriptive analyses to learn how many hours of TA staff members were receiving, what topics the TA most commonly addressed, and what formats (e.g., in-person or virtual/remote, individual, or group) the TA was most commonly provided in. We then associated characteristics of the TA received with staff and program characteristics, as well as with staff members' turnover. Multilevel analyses showed the TA supports that home visiting staff members received differed by role (home visitor or supervisor) and program characteristics, including home visiting model-Nurse Family Partnership (NFP) or Parents as Teachers (PAT)-program size, and maturity. About 23% of the home visiting staff members left their programs over the course of 18 months. PAT staff members were more likely to leave their programs than NFP staff members. We did not find that characteristics of TA received were predictive of staff members' turnover. Implications and the need for further research are discussed.

New Perspectives on the Child‐ and Youth‐Serving Workforce in Low‐Resource Communities: Fostering Best Practices and Professional Development

“…Finally, Chen et al. () study how professional support provided to different types of home visiting staff influenced the likelihood of attrition from the profession. While professional support was found to vary by program model and differ for direct service providers versus supervisors, it was unassociated with staff turnover.…”

Strengthening the Child‐ and Youth‐Serving Workforce: Surveying the Landscape, Overcoming Challenges

“…Chen et al. (), Cramer and Cappella (), and Schwartz et al. () examine the value of staff training to ensure job satisfaction, reduce turnover, and enhance performance among early childhood teachers.…”

“…Chen et al. () focus on technical assistance, Cramer and Cappella () on “on‐the‐job‐supports,” such as training, coaching, and collegial networks, and Schwartz et al. () on a variety of contextual factors, such as poverty, educational level, training take‐up, among others.…”

“…Chen et al ( 2019), Cramer andSchwartz et al (2019) examine the value of staff training to ensure job satisfaction, reduce turnover, and enhance performance among early childhood teachers. Chen et al (2019) focus on technical assistance, Cramer and Cappella (2019) on "on-the-job-supports," such as training, coaching, and collegial networks, and Schwartz et al (2019) on a variety of contextual factors, such as poverty, educational level, training take-up, among others. Their findings do not point to easy fixes of what should be done to support early childhood teachers to address satisfaction, turnover, and performance.…”

“…One approach is to organize by child development sectors, such as early childhood, childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Articles in this issue by Chen et al (2019) on training and supports received by early childhood home visiting staff, and by Cramer and Cappella (2019) on identifying training and support needed by early childhood assistant teachers, offer strategies for understanding and addressing stress and turnover among the early childhood workforce, even though this work was done in different settings, such as in the home and in child care.…”