BRIGHT Coaching: A Developmental Coach System to Empower Families of Preschoolers with Developmental Delays
A BRIGHT Futures project
WE ARE EVALUATING WHETHER OUR VIRTUAL COACHING PROGRAM HELPS SUPPORT PARENTS OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN WITH EMERGING DEVELOPMENTAL DELAYS AS THEY TRANSITION TO SCHOOL ENTRY.
Principal Investigators: Annette Majnemer (McGill University Health Centre) and Maureen O’Donnell (University of British Columbia)
Looking back:
our work in Phase 1
Parent Advisory Group member Natalina Pace
In 2021-2022, our team worked to collect the last of our data about the individualized coaching resource and online education tools we developed to help parents of preschool children with emerging developmental delays as they wait for a diagnosis and/or therapeutic interventions. We successfully completed recruitment, with a total of 306 participants enrolled. By the end of this fiscal year, all but 10 participants had completed our program.
In addition to data collection, we consulted with our coaches and parent advisors to prepare for Phase 1 data analysis and implementation in Phase 2. We held a focus group with our coaching team about their experiences delivering our program. Our coaches told us what was successful as well as what could be modified. This insight will help us implement our program in the health care system in Phase 2. We then conducted focus groups and interviews with our parent advisory group to understand what parents hoped to learn from our data analysis. We gained invaluable patient-oriented information from these discussions that will guide our analytic approach.
We also focused on knowledge translation and dissemination this year. Prior to completing her postdoctoral training with our team, Tatiana Ogourtsova presented the results of our patient engagement survey at the 76th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine. In collaboration with our co-principal investigators, Annette Majnemer and Maureen O’Donnell, Tatiana also conducted a series of webinars for provincial and national health organizations. These webinars focused on the scientific evidence supporting telerehabilitation treatments and assessments for children and youth with brain-based developmental disabilities and their families.
We look forward to collecting the remaining data, completing our data analysis, and sharing our Phase 1 results widely.
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An eye to the future: what Phase 2 has in store for us
Parent Advisory Group member Faizan Khan with son
Evidence continues to mount on the effectiveness of online coaching interventions and telehealth more generally. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that a service like BRIGHT Coaching can have an important place in the health care system. We’re therefore excited for the opportunity to prepare the coaching program we developed for use in diverse communities across four provinces: British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec, and Nova Scotia.
“I would have had great difficulty getting through the experience without [the coach’s] encouragement and support […] participating in [BRIGHT Coaching] has changed my life and that of my family.” – BRIGHT Coaching parent participant, on their experience after receiving a troubling diagnosis for their child.
In Phase 2, our team will focus on identifying and working with knowledge users, including frontline health care providers, decision makers, policy makers, and caregivers, to ensure that BRIGHT Coaching is ready for this expansion. To do so, we will collaborate and consult with community partners to address gaps from an inclusive and equitable lens. We will also work with health care facilities and networks as well as governmental authorities to integrate this online service as part of the public health care delivery system. CHILD-BRIGHT’s experts in implementation science and policy development will help us accelerate uptake and impact.
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