JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Out of school hours care (OSHC) services provide a unique opportunity to deliver early-intervention programs to enhance primary-school age children’s social, emotional, physical and cognitive wellbeing, yet such programs are currently lacking.

Objective:

To address the lack of wellbeing programs for children accessing OSHC services in the research literature, by using participatory design (PD) to collaboratively develop and test an OSHC wellbeing program - the Connect, Promote and Protect Program (CP3).

Methods:

The study employed methods of participatory design, user (acceptance) testing, and iterative knowledge translation to develop a novel wellbeing program framework – the Connect, Promote and Protect Program (CP3) – with key stakeholders (e.g. children, OSHC staff, volunteers, families, clinicians, educators and researchers). Thematic techniques were used to interpret and translate qualitative information obtained during the research and design cycle.

Results:

The co-design process generated the CP3 model, which comprises a group-based mentoring approach to facilitate enhanced activities in OSHC settings. Activities are underpinned by four key principles of program delivery: (1) Build Wellbeing & Resilience; (2) Broaden Horizons; (3) Inspire & Engage; and (4) Connect Communities.

Conclusions:

To our knowledge, the CP3 program is the first co-designed wellbeing program developed specifically for OSHC services. This co-design process is key to ensuring local community needs – particularly those of young people accessing OSHC – are met and that these individuals are meaningfully and actively involved in all stages of the research and design process – from conception, to implementation, evaluation and continuous improvement.