A Qualitative Examination of Family and Educator Perspectives on Early Childhood Behavior Supports

Educator focus group participants

We recruited all educator participants via emails in English. Initial emails were sent to school districts that had previously collaborated on other projects with members of the research team. Interested educators then contacted us via email and were invited to participate after an eligibility screening. In total, 11 educators from three school districts and one behavioral health agency participated in the initial educator focus group (see Table 1). Five of these educators also participated in the combined focus group. To be included, educator participants had to be a current behavior specialist or educator in an early childhood setting and have experience providing behavior support to young children with challenging behavior.

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Table 1.

Educator Participants.

Participant	Focus group	Race/ethnicity	Gender	District	Role	Years in role	Certification	Highest level of education
Educator 1	Educator	White	Female	Ashland	Behavior specialist	3–4	Administrator	Master’s
Educator 2	Educator, combined	White	Female	Lakeland	Behavior specialist	3–4	ECE, SpEd	Master’s
Educator 3	Educator, combined	White	Female	Lakeland	EC educator	13–14	NBCT, Administrator	Master’s
Educator 4	Educator	White	Female	Ashland	EC educator	9–10	NBCT	Master’s
Educator 5	Educator	White	Female	Lakeland	Behavior specialist	3–4	Teacher, BCBA	Master’s
Educator 6	Educator, combined	White	Female	BHA	Behavior specialist	3–4	BCBA, LBA	Master’s
Educator 7	Educator, combined	White	Female	Lakeland	EC educator	7–8	SpEd, Gen. Ed	Master’s
Educator 8	Educator	Asian	Female	Bayland	EC educator	<1	ECE, SpEd	Bachelor’s
Educator 9	Educator	Two or more races	Female	Ashland	EC educator	3–4	Elementary education, SpEd	Master’s
Educator 10	Educator, combined	White	Female	Lakeland	Behavior specialist	9–10	None	Associate’s
Educator 11	Educator	White	Female	Lakeland	EC educator	5–6	Teacher	Master’s

Note. BHA = behavioral health agency; EC = early childhood; ECE = early childhood education; SpEd = special education; NBCT = nationally board certified teacher; BCBA = board certified behavior analyst; LBA = licensed behavior analyst.

Family focus group participants

We recruited all family participants via emails and flyers in English and Spanish. We sent recruitment emails to districts, behavioral agencies, and parent advocacy groups that served young children with challenging behavior and their families. Interested family members were screened for eligibility and invited to participate. Six family members participated in the initial family focus group (see Table 2). Two of these family members also participated in the combined focus group. Because we wanted similar numbers of educator and family participants in the combined focus group, we recruited six additional family participants. To be included, family participants had to be a parent or guardian of a child who received or self-identified as eligible to receive behavior support in early childhood.

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Table 2.

Family Participants.

Participant	Focus group	Preferred language	Parent race/ ethnicity	Age of child (years)	Child IEP	Child BSP	Education setting	Suspension	Expulsion
FM 1	Family	English	White	8	No	Yes	PP	Yes	No
FM 2	Family, combined	English	White	5	Yes	Yes	CB, C, PP, PuP	No	No
FM 3	Family	Spanish	Latino	5	Yes	Yes	HB, HS	NR	NR
FM 4	Family, combined	English	Black	5, 3.5	Yes	Yes	HS, PuP	No	No
FM 5	Family	English	NR	6	Yes	Yes	CB, PuP, B-3	Yes	No
FM 6	Family	Spanish	Hispanic/Latino	5	Yes	Yes	CB, FF, PuP	Yes	No
FM 7	Combined	English	Black	7	Yes	Yes	CB, FF, PuP (SpEd)	Yes	No
FM 8	Combined	English	White	5	Yes	Yes	HB, CB, HS/ECEAP, PuP	No	Yes
FM 9 a	Combined	Spanish	Hispanic	12	Yes	No	HS/ECEAP	Yes	Yes
FM 10 a	Combined	Spanish	Hispanic	12	Yes	No	HB, HS/ECEAP, PuP	Yes	Yes
FM 11 b	Combined	Spanish	Hispanic	21	Yes	No	FF, HS/ECEAP	No	No
FM 12 b	Combined	Spanish	Hispanic	11	No	No	HB, FF, HS/ECEAP	No	No

Note. FM = family member; NR = not reported; IEP = individualized education plan; BSP = behavior support plan; CB = center-based childcare; FF = friend or family childcare; HB = home-based childcare; ECEAP = early childhood education and assistance program; HS = head start; PP = private preschool; PuP = public preschool; C = camp; B-3 = birth-3 services.

a

Parents of same child. ^bParents of same child.

Fall (Year 1) educator focus group

We designed the educator focus group to solicit educators’ perceptions of key elements of the behavior support process, with a focus on family and team collaboration. Educator participants attended a half-day workshop that included an opening session describing the agenda and goals for the day followed by focus groups. Participants were assigned focus groups on two of the four topics that included (a) teaming, (b) family collaboration, (c) coaching, and (d) classroom contexts. Each focus group included three to four educators, was facilitated by a member of the research team, lasted 45 min, and was audio recorded for later transcription. Focus groups began with a 2- to 3-min framing of the topic, including operationally defining key terms. Then, the facilitator prompted the group through a series of questions on the topic. For example, educators were asked, “How do you engage families in supporting children’s positive behavior in your setting?” and “What works well in your setting for collaborating with families around behavior?”

Spring (Year 1) family focus group

We designed the family focus group to elicit families’ perceptions of their experience partnering with educators to support their child’s behavior. Family participants attended a workshop that used the same structure as the educator workshop. However, the topics and questions for the focus groups were specific to families and included discussion of their experience with (a) behavioral referral and support, (b) behavior planning and implementation, (c) partnerships, and (d) technology. For example, we asked families, “What does it look like when things are going well between you, your child, and your child’s teachers?” The final topic, technology, was included to more directly inform the development of the web-based application and broader project goals. Each family participated in two of the four discussion topics.

Winter (Year 2) focus group and member check

The third and final focus group served as both a member check of the findings from the first two focus groups and an additional data collection opportunity. Eight family members and five educators attended a half-day workshop. Seven of the participants had participated in previous focus groups (two family members, five educators) and six of the participants were new. The workshop included a member check of information from the first two focus groups and an activity designed to solicit feedback on how our web-based application could support family collaboration (approximately 60 min each). During the member check, we assigned educators and families to role-alike groups and asked participants to provide feedback on our claims around family-centered communication, behavioral expertise and data, and practicality of the behavioral support process. We used the following questions to elicit participant feedback on each topic: (a) What do you agree with regarding this general conclusion? (b) What do you disagree with? (c) What would you add to our understanding of this topic? and (d) What are you concerned about? We gave participants a packet when they arrived at the workshop that included an agenda, slides from each session, and role-specific prompts. We encouraged participants to provide verbal, visual, and written feedback throughout the workshop.

Educator and family data analysis

After both the educator and family focus groups, we created a preliminary code book. First, we met to discuss potential codes based on the goals of the project and extant literature, operationally define each code, and create a preliminary code book to use during initial coding. We organized codes under the categories of (a) roles (i.e., behavior specialist, early childhood educator, families), (b) topics of interest (situated within the context of promoting positive behavior), and (c) goals (based on key features of successful implementation of positive behavior supports). For example, one of the initial codes under “Topics of Interest” was “Family Collaboration,” which we defined as “When educational professionals partner with families, communicate with families, and/or build relationships with families to achieve shared goals that promote students’ behavioral success.” This initial coding tree served as the starting point for our subsequent analysis activities.

Next, we coded each focus group transcript, assigning at least two research team members per transcript. As we independently coded, we wrote memos with suggestions for how to further revise the codes. These memos were brought to weekly or bi-weekly analysis meetings, which involved discussing questions that arose from coding, identifying new codes, modifying definitions of old codes, and streamlining codes (e.g., reorganizing, collapsing). Once the coding tree was finalized for each data set, we used it for first- and second-round coding. During first- and second-round coding, we applied both our a priori deductive codes and allowed for additional inductive codes. During first-round coding, this resulted in a combination of a priori codes and inductive structural and descriptive codes (Saldaña, 2013). Throughout first-round coding, we all wrote coding memos that were shared in team meetings to further clarify our understanding of the data. For example, in one team meeting, we discussed how the data in codes “clearly defined roles” and “role boundaries” addressed a similar idea but in a slightly different way. After exploring the data in each code, we decided to keep both codes, but clarify that “role boundaries” was a challenge when “clearly defined roles” were not present. Thus, “role boundaries” was moved under the parent code “challenges” and “clearly defined roles” stayed under “teaming.” Our ongoing coding memos and weekly analysis meetings helped us refine our coding scheme and discuss any coding challenges or questions.

After the first round of initial coding, we met to discuss second-round coding which involved identifying initial themes and patterns in the data (Saldaña, 2013). During this second round of coding, we created visual displays of the data, known as data networks (Miles et al., 2014). For the educator data set, we built data displays by putting all first round codes on Post-it notes and reorganizing them visually by category, creating a series of codes with connections among them that suggested which codes were related and where hierarchies of codes and subcodes were needed (Miles et al., 2014). This involved discussing each code, looking at the scope of data for each code, and regrouping, renaming, or combining them as necessary. This process spanned multiple meetings and resulted in a display of final coding categories, themes, and ideas about collaboration and positive behavior support. The final categories included key features, challenges, family collaboration, coaching, and classroom context, each with their own set of subthemes. For the family data set, our data displays involved trying to organize the themes in a relational way, visually depicting how categories and themes were connected. The final categories included communication, data, expertise, and challenges/barriers.

After identifying the themes in each data set, we began narrative description of the data (Miles et al., 2014). Each team member was assigned 1 to 2 categories per data set and wrote a narrative description for each set. These narratives described how the category was conceptualized in the data, referenced with subcodes and themes, and identified with evidence and codes from first cycle coding and the transcripts that supported our claims about that category. We shared these narrative descriptions at analysis meetings, and they became preliminary drafts of the findings.

Cross-data analysis

Once we independently analyzed both the educator and family data set, we began cross-data analysis. Our cross-data analysis involved reviewing final claims and themes for each group and integrating the findings to answer our research questions. First, we created a visual representation of our interpretation of the relationship among themes across groups. Each member of the team proposed their own visual display of the data, what Miles et al. (2014) refer to as a model, described it by writing an analytic memo explaining the connections across data sets, and then shared it with the team. We used these analytic memos to construct a collaborative model to display the key tenets of family–professional collaboration for positive behavior support, which we present in the discussion.

Final data analysis

Our final analysis involved integrating the new member-check data with our proposed model and claims. First, we transcribed and cleaned the data for review. We assigned team members to each data set to (a) read member-check data and (b) note any discrepancies, new data, or conflicting data. We each wrote a brief memo highlighting our findings and shared them with the group at the next analysis meeting. During this meeting, we noted points of consensus regarding what we learned or noticed from the member-check data and incorporated the new learning into the findings.

Family-centered communication

A key characteristic of effective partnership is enacted when professionals center the experiences of families and children in the behavioral support process. Communication that is family-centered employs a strength-based family and child perspective, and it prioritizes family input and is supportive of families’ roles. Positive, family-centered communication supports families’ agency and stands in contrast to the negative communication families sometimes receive, such as deficit-focused reports, policies, and procedures.

Family-centered communication embraces the strengths of the family, reflected through a professional lens centered on the wholeness and goodness of the child. Families valued when educators saw potential in their child’s growth and engaged in responsive, caring, and individualized interactions with them. This is illustrated by Family Member 1 when speaking about her child’s teacher, “She, bottom line, just really loved him, and saw the good in him, even when he was hard.” When educators had positive responses to children’s behavior, families felt that their child was loved, appreciated, and welcomed in their early learning programs. However, families generally characterized their experiences as being inconsistent with such positive, family-centered communication. Family Member 6 described learning about the educator’s concerns regarding her child’s behaviors during the behavior support process by saying, “the way you find out is usually not nice.” Families craved more positive information from professionals, as described by Family Member 5 when she said, “I want to hear when my child has a good day. Can we have that?” Families experienced painful emotions when confronted with negative, dispassionate, or judgmental messaging about their child from professionals.

Families felt they were participating in effective partnerships when they engaged in reciprocal communication with professionals who were knowledgeable of families’ home contexts and prioritized family input. For instance, they appreciated when professionals recognized the unique expertise they held in their role as parents, while also being aware of what challenges and successes families were experiencing at home. Families welcomed specific, tangible strategies that they could do at home to support their child’s development. Family Member 2 described such a reciprocal relationship when she said, “Helping me to help him is a big part of that . . . when they help give me strategies and vice versa, that it’s open both ways . . . proactive.” Of equal importance was the ability for families to voice their concerns and meaningfully contribute to the behavior support process. Family Member 1 described such partnerships with professionals as “when I feel like . . . we all have equal input. And just the idea of having input at all, having a say, and feeling valued.” The perception that professionals held high regard for family participation and agency was paramount to family-centered communication.

Finally, families often felt they lacked the support they needed from professionals to assuredly carry their child through the behavior support process. This lack of family–professional collaboration was a barrier to family-centered communication. Some parents described the need to advocate for their child and fight for resources when they felt they would have benefited from assistance. As Family Member 5 said,

I feel as a parent we’re the ones that have to advocate and do all of the work and the research, and we have to be the ones to make it happen. It’s not like they, in my experience, have helped me along that process. It’s me; it always falls on me.

Although a few parents considered participating in specialized training to increase their own knowledge of individualized behavior supports, not all parents felt comfortable directly advocating for their children. For example, they described a desire for professionals to reach out to them and invite them to share their thoughts. Family Member 4 described the importance of professionals asking families questions so that families might feel comfortable sharing and checking in: “But you know if you ask me a question, I would dig in and say ‘well, let me remember. Let me try to tell what changes I’m seeing or behaviors I’m seeing.’” In this way, some parents preferred a more direct invitation from educators to enter the family–professional partnership.

Data-based communication, reflective of behavioral expertise

To effectively communicate with families throughout the behavior support process and build strong partnerships between school and home, professionals’ communication must be data-based and demonstrate behavioral expertise. Families benefited most when professionals communicated about the behavior support process using information grounded in accurate, understandable, and meaningful data.

Families wanted information that had little jargon and was presented in accessible language. Family Member 2 relayed challenges with accessing interpretable information about her child when she said,

Data is really important to me . . . not just anecdotes and not just the data floating around everybody’s head, and what they think, because our team has a lot of opinions. I have had a lot of problems this year with getting data when I’m asking for it.

She went on to describe the challenge that posed in making data-based decisions about her child’s education: “Decisions are being made without proof of what’s happening . . . show me that it’s happening this many times, at this time of day, [and] with this person or that.” Family Member 5 described a similar lack of data for informing decisions and official communication:

They have a psychologist to say all the right things and you know, the tri-annual evaluations or in the planning. So, they say what they need to say to sound like there’s a functional plan in place. But it’s not, really.

Without data, families were not sure that the choices made on behalf of their children were in their best educational interest.

Families were also concerned with the level of behavioral expertise held by professionals on their child’s team, how it influenced the quality of their child’s education, and how it affected their partnership. They wanted members of their child’s behavior support team to be able to hold and apply such expertise to their child’s education. Family Member 5 described this as follows:

I wish that every school had a behaviorist that was on-site and part of the program, because that is a huge game changer. Like, looking at the functions of behavior and what is happening before they hit . . . and how can we come up with a plan that actually is specific to this kid? Not just some general goal. Like, what specifically can we do to help this child?

When the school team had behavioral expertise, parents felt that the responsibility for supporting their child’s behavior was more evenly distributed between them and educators. With less professional behavioral expertise, families felt burdened to become the expert to help their child.

Families also felt partnerships were improved when there was explicit communication about each person’s role in supporting their child. Family Member 11 described this as follows:

This is what it looks like to get support from the team, or this is what my role looks like . . . And so I think that having that conversation over and over again about like, “This is what your role is” or, “This is what everyone’s role is.”

In summary, with respect to data, when education professionals came to the behavior support process with relevant knowledge to share and clearly defined roles, families felt more supported in the partnership.

Practical, efficient communication

Families identified practicality as the last critical communication component in an effective partnership. Family members considered communication practical if it was timely, efficient, bidirectional, and occurred consistently among all identified members of the behavior support team.

The issue of timeliness, including how quickly and how frequently communication was initiated by families and professionals, was an important one for family members when judging the quality of communication among the team. Family members consistently reported wanting teachers to communicate with them immediately, as opposed to waiting for children’s behaviors to escalate. Family Member 3 expressed this when she said, “Anything [professionals] see, no matter how small it is, these behaviors it’s very concerning for [families], they should just tell us right away.” Family Member 2 built upon this sentiment saying, “You know, like all of a sudden your son needs all of this support, and I was like, ‘Well where were we 3 months ago? How come we didn’t know this?’” Without immediate and timely communication, parents felt confused when suddenly confronted with information about their children that they believe could have been provided sooner. Families also suggested that how communication is shared influenced whether or not it was acknowledged in a timely manner. As Family Member 9 said, “At first, we were just doing letters, and they were saying they were not getting them. So, we started doing emails, and we have everything on record.” Emails and texts provided documentation of communication that families felt influenced teachers’ responsiveness and accountability.

In addition to favoring timely communication, families expressed a desire for communication to be shared among all members of their child’s team, including principals, educators, transportation personnel, and themselves. This allowed all individuals on the team to be included and informed about important events or changes in their child’s life. Family Member 1 highlighted this vision for team-wide communication and information-sharing when she said, “It’s important to really have everyone have a full picture.” Similarly, when talking about his child’s educators, Family Member 4 described the value of sharing an open line of communication with his child’s educators, through which they could inform one another of significant information about his child’s challenging behavior by saying,

If the teacher said something like “Oh I did see her do that” but I didn’t take it as a concern, maybe the teacher is seeing something else at school related to this. And let’s have a look at this. Let me tell them what I saw.

Communication

Educators emphasized the importance of how to communicate with families during the behavior support process. They considered the timing and modality of communication as important as the content. Communication strategies included information gathering to learn more about families’ preferred modes of communication with the professional team, asking about the types of strategies that seemed most successful to motivate children, and learning about children’s preferences. When possible, starting this communication as early as possible helped educators establish a positive relationship with families, making it easier to address any problems that might arise later related to a child’s behavior in the classroom. Educators were willing to communicate with family members in whatever ways families preferred, via communication applications, text messaging, or phone calls. Several educators agreed when Educator 9 noted as follows:

Lots of my parents talk or chat text [me] at least once or twice a day. And it’s not any hardship for me because it’s just on my phone . . . I mostly use Bloomz which is kind of like Class Dojo but it’s more that I can chat with them, accepting text messages throughout whenever . . .

Educators attempted to communicate in various ways to establish frequent, positive interaction with their young learners’ families. Educators emphasized the importance of in-person meetings to help ensure clear and accurate understanding of families’ ideas and positions. As Educator 11 commented, “Sometimes phone conversations or emails, things can get misinterpreted. And so meeting in-person, face-to-face, just really helps build a better relationship and be on the same page.” Families that transported their child to and/or from school had more time and access to in-person communication with educators. This suggests that communication about a child’s behavior may often be informal and opportunistic.

Educators also described challenges when considering who on their team was best positioned to communicate with families. Some educators suggested behavior support teams should identify a single person on the behavior support team to be the primary point-of-contact for families, an idea grounded in the concept that families develop relationships with specific educators rather than all members of a school- or program-based behavior support team. Educators acknowledged a need for better training to ensure everyone on the behavior team had the minimum amount of expertise needed to participate fully in the behavior support process and communicate with families. As Educator 5 indicated, “. . . more standardized knowledge and training around behavior [is necessary] just so we even have the same language. Everyone has at least that basic tool kit . . . that would be hugely important.” Educator 6 emphasized the importance of a minimum, consistent standard of knowledge by stating as follows:

Well, I do think it can be challenging in our district because depending on what, where you are geographically, you’re going to get different people doing that FBA that have different levels of expertise . . . it is pretty startling . . . the professionals involved and the different levels of expertise, that can be pretty challenging and pretty frustrating that there’s no standard.

Finally, educators considered what they should communicate to families during the behavior support process. They described the necessity of focusing on positive aspects of student behavior when communicating with families. Focusing on appropriate behaviors and successful interactions made it easier for educators to communicate with families about challenges related to a child’s behavior. Educator 2 reflected on this when she described coaching another teacher to support a child’s behavior intervention plan:

And about 3 weeks ago I said, you really need to write in your notes to the parent what they [the child] did right. And they said, “He hasn’t done anything right today.” And I said, “He’s done something right. He sat in his chair for one minute. He did something.”

All educators acknowledged the importance of communication with families to build effective and positive behavior supports. Educator 7 exemplified this by saying, “Engaging families in supporting positive behavior. It really begins with communication and honest conversations.”

Building partnerships

According to educators, building partnerships with families required more than just strong communication strategies. It required time, resource sharing, and intentional community-building activities inside and outside of the classroom. Educators who shared lesson plans and behavior support resources with families believed they were building positive family–professional partnerships. Many educators created resources for families to use at home, including picture communication icons, social stories, and token boards. Educators who conducted home visits also contributed to building family partnerships. Although home visits required a significant time commitment, many educators were dedicated to conducting home visits as a way to build rapport and empathy with families, including Educator 8 who noted as follows:

I found that in the past, home visits were very helpful because [children] could talk about their home life; but until you see it, you can’t really imagine some of the things that they’re talking about. So, when you see something happening, it’s just more like, okay I understand where you’re coming from now.

Some educators experienced structural or administrative barriers to home visiting. Regardless of whether home visits or other relationship-building activities were possible, all educators believed building a meaningful relationship with the families of their children was important to the success of children’s behavior support plans.

Educators described community-building activities as a contribution to family–professional partnerships; these activities were intentionally designed to foster partnerships and help families establish informal peer support networks. Educators understood that building communities where families were welcome to bring their young children, no matter what else was happening in their lives, was critical to the success of the whole family and by proxy, the professional team. Educator 4 described this idea by saying, “. . . the more you feel valued as part of a community, the less challenging behaviors you’re going to see in your classroom.” They recognized that both family–professional partnerships and informal peer support networks could provide families with the skills needed to navigate “hard to access” educational systems such as the behavior support process.