Date Presented 04/03/2025
Post-COVID, there is increased need for community–university partnerships to support families with young children. An interdisciplinary faculty team piloted and assessed a caregiver-and-child model of family services, led by clinicians and students.
Primary Author and Speaker: Zahava Friedman
Contributing Authors: Jessica Latawiec, Kelly Sullivan-Jones, Keri Giordano, Kate Nealon, John Lee, Sabrina Kenny
PURPOSE: Young children born during the pandemic and their caregivers have been impacted by the unique and traumatic experiences of COVID-19 (Friedman, 2024). Designed to distinctly serve young families, Raising Families is a scalable, sustainable model of family support that aims to promote occupation-based skill-development of children, their caregivers and service provider teams. The purpose of this study was to assess program evaluation data to determine the effectiveness of three initial cohorts of interprofessional Raising Families programming.
DESIGN: Across three cohorts, thirty-seven (N=37) families participated in a 12-week in-person therapeutic sequence, delivered by forty two (N = 42) students and clinicians from occupational, speech, physical and psychological therapy departments. A pre-post quasi-experimental design was utilized to assess impact to parent mental health, child development and student/clinician interprofessional competencies.
METHOD: Interprofessional Collaborative Competencies Attainment Survey (ICCAS) a validated interprofessional education tool, was utilized to assess change in interprofessional competencies (Archibald et al., 2014; Friedman et al., 2023). Child data was collected via Brigance Inventory of Early Development, while caregiver data was collected via BASC-3 Parenting Relationship Questionnaire (PRQ), the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM), and weekly evaluation surveys (Law et al., 1990).
RESULTS: Preliminary analyses revealed significant increases on ICCAS, BASC-3 PRQ, and notably, communication/social portions of the Brigance. An upward trend was also noted in COPM pre- and post-scores comparison. Thematic analysis of survey responses revealed the iterative nature of designing and improving interprofessional models.
IMPACT STATEMENT: This research highlighted the value of interprofessionally delivered, whole-family services, to build capacity of caregivers, students and clinicians impacted by the pandemic.
References
Archibald, D., Trumpower, D., & MacDonald, C. J. (2014). Validation of the interprofessional collaborative competency attainment survey (ICCAS). Journal of Interprofessional Care, 28(6), 553–558. https://doi.org/10.3109/13561820.2014.917407
Friedman, Z. L. (2024). Breakfast club lessons: staff perspectives on a yearlong collaborative teletherapy initiative during COVID-19. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 56(2), 151–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2022.2119447
Friedman, Z. L., Hubbard, K., & Seruya, F. (2023). Building Better Teams: Impact of Education And Coaching Intervention on Interprofessional Collaboration Between Teachers and Occupational Therapists in Schools. Journal of Occupational Therapy, Schools, & Early Intervention, 16(2), 173–193. https://doi.org/10.1080/19411243.2022.2037492
Law, M., Baptiste, S., McColl, M., Opzoomer, A., Polatajko, H., & Pollock, N. (1990). The Canadian occupational performance measure: an outcome measure for occupational therapy. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 57(2), 82–87. https://doi.org/10.1177/000841749005700207
