JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Early care and education programs are vital social determinants of health that eliminate disparities by providing stable care and access to high-quality learning so parents can work. The majority of young children spend at least some time in ECE programs, where they develop social-emotional skills preparing them for future success. It is critical that the early childhood workforce is prepared to support young children’s burgeoning social-emotional skills. Infant early childhood mental health consultation is an evidence informed approach for increasing ECE teachers’ skills for managing young children’s emotions and behaviors. Jump Start is an infant early childhood mental health consultation program with evidence for its efficacy. Continuous professional development via a mobile app can be a venue to increase early childhood teachers use of Jump Start practices.

Objective:

This study utilized community-based participatory research to explore the perspectives of early childhood teachers in South Florida for the utility of a mobile mental health app, Jump Start on the Go. Jump Start on the Go is a trilingual app that provides early childhood teachers with access to information in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole to implement Jump Start practices designed to support young children’s social-emotional skill development.

Methods:

This study used sequential exploratory mixed methods to gather qualitative and quantitative data across two phases. In phase one of the study, early childhood teachers (n=12) reviewed mockups of the app in both English and Spanish and were interviewed to gauge the ease of use, functionality, benefits and usefulness of the mobile application. Rapid qualitative analysis generated themes to inform phase two of the study. In phase two, early childhood teachers (n = 31) interacted with a prototype of the app and then rated its acceptability and feasibility as a mechanism for Jump Start practices. Descriptive statistics were used to capture teacher perceptions.

Results:

The qualitative findings indicate that teacher champions view the app as aesthetically pleasing with concise information. They describe the app as beneficial and useful to both current and new early childhood teachers, and identify it as a tool to support sustainability for the use of Jump Start practices. The quantitative findings indicate that teachers perceive the app as a helpful, acceptable, and feasible for accessing Jump Start information.

Conclusions:

Early childhood teachers have overall positive perceptions about the value of the Jump Start on the Go app. Future research will need to test the efficacy of the app for increasing teacher’s use of Jump Start practices.