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Holly Hatton-Bowers, associate professor of child, youth and family studies, is leading research to support the well-being of educators in Early Head Start and Head Start programs.
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Cultivating Healthy Intentional Mindful Educators (CHIME): Evaluating the Use of Mindfulness and Compassion to Promote Early Head Start/Head Start Education Staffs' Well-Being
Research Team
Principal Investigator: Holly Hatton
Co-Principal Investigators: Lorey Wheeler, Susan Sheridan, Lisa Knoche, Gilbert Parra, Carrie Clark, Kathleen Gallagher, Jaclynn Foged
Award Date: Oct 1, 2021
End Date: Sep 29, 2025
Abstract
To address the critical need of supporting Early Head Start/Head Start (EHS/HS) education staff well-being, researchers will collaborate with EHS/HS programs to co-refine and adapt a new mindfulness-based intervention — Cultivating Healthy Intentional Mindful Educators (CHIME) — to make the intervention effective and internally sustainable for EHS/HS programs.
Small studies with CHIME in general early care and education settings provide a proof of concept of its effectiveness, with educators reporting enhanced well-being and reduced workplace burnout. However, CHIME has not been adapted for or rigorously tested in EHS/HS settings.
Building on promising evidence for the efficacy of CHIME, researchers will partner with EHS/HS programs to gather feedback from EHS and HS staff and families about how to refine CHIME to best address their needs, and determine CHIMEs feasibility, acceptability and fidelity within the EHS/HS context.
After CHIME is refined in phase 1, researchers will work with EHS/HS partners to coordinate a rigorous, multi-method approach to evaluate the efficacy of CHIME with 120 EHS/HS education staff and 360 children/families (phase 2). Also, 10 directors and assistant EHS/HS directors will be interviewed to identify barriers and facilitators to implementation and to put in place effective mechanisms to support the sustainability of CHIME-HS (phase 3).
The team will then determine whether trained EHS/HS staff can effectively implement CHIME with fidelity for promoting EHS/HS education staff emotional well-being, workplace engagement, decreasing their physiological and emotional reactivity, promoting positive teaching practices, strengthening family partnerships, and promoting young children's social skills and self-regulation.
Researchers are collaborating with Dr. Michael Yellow Bird, dean of the faculty of social work at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Social, Emotional and Behavioral Well-being, Early Childhood Education and Development
Holly Hatton-Bowers, associate professor of child, youth and family studies, is leading research to support the well-being of educators in Early Head Start and Head Start programs.