Interagency Training to Promote Culturally Responsive, Family-Centered Home Visiting and Pediatric Service Integration

@mastersthesis{wood2025,
  title = {Interagency Training to Promote Culturally Responsive, Family-Centered Home Visiting and Pediatric Service Integration},
  author = {Wood, Christina},
  year = {2025},
  keywords = {Collaboration, home visiting, Inteprofessional, Interagency, Pediatrics, Training},
  abstract = {Early childhood is a critical period of rapid cognitive, language, and social-emotional development, which influences long-term health and educational outcomes (Shonkoff et al., 2009). However, poverty can hinder development during these formative years (Morris et al., 2017), making it essential for agencies serving infants and toddlers to promote positive outcomes for at-risk populations. Two key service systems—home visiting and pediatric primary care—share the goal of providing culturally responsive, family-centered care. Despite this shared goal, coordinated care between these systems is lacking. One potential solution for achieving coordination is interagency training, where professionals from both systems engage in joint training to improve communication and understanding of each other’s roles. The current study followed the Participatory Intervention Model (Nastasi et al., 2000) to design and pilot Linking for Little Ones (LLO), an interactive interagency training for Early Head Start (EHS) home visitors and pediatric primary care residents. The training aimed to enhance mutual understanding of service systems and promote sustained collaboration between systems. LLO included four components: Interactive Instruction, Collaborative Case Study, Dual Discussion of Families, and a Reflective Debriefing session. A total of 10 EHS home visitors and 41 pediatric primary care residents participated. Results indicated that home visitors reported small gains in comfort and competence in guiding families on health topics and engaging in interprofessional collaborations with pediatricians. Effect sizes ranged from small to large across timepoints. Pediatric residents showed improvements in knowledge of EHS, family-centered care, and ideas for continued collaboration with home visitors. These results suggest that LLO offers meaningful benefits and warrants further exploration through a full-scale study. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.},
  language = {English},
}