Center for Evidence-Based Practice: Young Children with Challenging Behavior. Primary Partners

Primary Partners

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION PARTNERSHIPS

The Center is collaborating with national membership associations to extend the impact of its work on young children's social/emotional development and challenging behavior by: (1) ensuring the efficacy and social validity of its work, (2) increasing the likelihood of implementation of evidence-based practices at the local level, and (3) promoting systems change nationwide. The Center has Primary Partner Associations, which are: National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE), National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA), National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI), Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (DEC), and National Head Start Association (NHSA), and will have numerous Associate Partner Associations.

Key Objectives of the Partnerships

To advance a "unified message" of the importance of evidence-based practices in the field by those who provide leadership and trusted guidance—the national associations.
Example: regional workshops co-sponsored by the associations
To extend the social validity (believability and usefulness) of the Center's message and findings through the associations that stakeholders belong to and by responding to their guidance related to their members' needs such as cultural competence, family-centeredness, and "real-world" challenges.
Example: focus groups that represent families or cultural diversity held at meetings of associations
To assist the associations in institutionalizing evidence-based practices in their appropriate ongoing activities so that the life of the findings and products of the Center outlast and extend the federal funding.
Example: assisting in the development of association Web site and print materials and training venues that showcase evidence-based information
To increase the Center's ability to support systems change at the local level through a unified message about evidence-based practices that reaches all constituents at the local level (parents, mental health professionals, personnel trainers in the community college and other higher education arenas, state decision makers, special education consultants, etc.) that early childhood programs interact with in order to meet the diverse needs of children and families.
Example: early childhood, mental health professionals, and community college trainers hear the same information about what works and implement it in local programs collaboratively rather than functioning under disparate ideas about what works
To create a loop of ongoing information between the Center and stakeholders to guide the Center's work in order to target key issues, ensure that the Center is responsive over the five years to changing "real-world" needs in the field, and to create an ongoing dialogue of evidence-based practice issues.
Example: focus groups at the association meetings and Web-based interactive Q & A sessions on the association Web sites
To capitalize on cost-effective, existing association avenues to reach hundreds of thousands of direct service providers, families, administrators, and personnel trainers.
Example: the Center will prepare and NACCRRA will distribute an electronic fact sheet about strategies to use at home to over 250,000 families, in English and Spanish

Primary Partners

The Primary Partners were selected because they:

represent national membership organizations who can reach hundreds of thousands of early childhood professionals and consumers through their memberships and ongoing information venues
have been recognized leaders in the early childhood field for decades
issue program and personnel/staff development guidelines and/or standards
represent the largest, most broad-based membership constituencies in early childhood
have extensive networks with other organizations

Associate Partners

The Center will collaborate with numerous Associate Partners that represent national specific voices important to the Center's responsiveness and impact. These associations will represent important national, respected groups, albeit, not necessarily early childhood organizations. These Associate Partners will include groups that represent parents; mental health professionals; child welfare services; policy makers; health professionals; racial, economic, and linguistic diversity; and other important stakeholders. Current resources do not allow for extensive, individualized support to these numerous groups; however, the Center will be able to obtain feedback from these stakeholders regarding cultural appropriateness of materials, family-centered approaches, and issues related to child welfare and mental health agencies. The Center will, in turn, provide materials to the associations that they can tailor to their members' needs and use in their print products and on their Web sites. Again, not only will the Center's message and materials be enhanced by these partnerships, but the awareness of evidence-based practices is greatly increased beyond what the Center could do alone.

Associate Partners List

Partnership Outcomes to Date

Sessions on evidence-based practice and focus groups held at the 2001-2002 national conferences of DEC, NAEYC, NHSA, and NACCRRA
Workshops scheduled for the four Primary Partner 2002-2003 national conferences
Regional workshops currently being scheduled to coincide with the associations' regional groups
Primary Partners have endorsed or are in the process of endorsing the DEC Concept Paper on the Identification of and Intervention with Challenging Behavior
Web-based and distance learning options currently under development by the Center and the Primary Partners to be available through the Center's Web site and the partners' Web sites
Associate Partners currently being recruited

Center for Evidence-Based Practice: Young Children with Challenging Behavior
and The Center Web site are located at the University of South Florida
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