Needs Assessment Listening Sessions for the National Center for Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning's (NCECDTL's) Training and Technical Assistance Offerings

PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT OF 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13) STATEMENT OF PUBLIC BURDEN: The purpose of this information collection is to understand participants’ current and anticipated needs that the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning can address in future offerings. Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 60 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and reviewing the collection of information. This is a voluntary collection of information. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information subject to the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB # is 0970-0531 and the expiration date is 07/31/2022. If you have any comments on this collection of information, please contact [contact info to be added at event]

Disability Services Coordinators Listening Session Protocol

Thank you for joining us today to talk about your role as a Disability Services Coordinator and the supports you need that could be provided through a mobile app or other technology platform. I am Trenna Valado, and this is Kate Brunick – we lead the evaluation and quality improvement efforts for the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning.

After we’ve completed some brief introductions, I’ll begin recording the session. We are recording for notetaking purposes only – no one other than Kate and I will review the recording, and it will be deleted after we refine our notes.

Importantly, anything you share with us today will remain private – our notes and the summary report we prepare will not include any of your names, so that nothing you say can be traced back to you. If at any time you would like to say something that you do not want included in our notes, just say so and we will be sure to exclude those statements. Lastly, we also ask that you help us ensure privacy by not talking about the information shared by others during this session with anyone outside this group. Do any of you have any objection with recording our session?

Over the next hour, I will ask some questions related to your work as Disability Services Coordinators and I will try to keep the discussion moving. Feel free to respond directly to these questions, but also to respond to the comments and ideas shared by others or to bring up other topics related to your work as a Disability Services Coordinator. Since this is a group discussion, not everyone may want to speak on every question; however, we are very interested in hearing each person’s perspective on most questions. If you want to respond to something someone said, or if you want to agree or disagree, you can do that, but please be respectful because we want everyone to have a chance to share their ideas. It is important that only one person talk at a time so that we can hear everyone and accurately record your opinions. Are there any questions before we get started?

Okay, great! Before I begin the recording, let’s do a quick round of introductions, just saying your name, the Region/location where you work, and one issue in your work that’s top of mind for you right now.

Thanks, now I’m going to begin the recording.

1. To begin the conversation, we’d like to hear about some of your best experiences of being a Disability Services Coordinator. Could each of you please describe a time when you felt especially successful in your role and what you think made it so successful?

2. We’d like to learn more about your experiences in supporting educators and home visitors as a Disability Services Coordinator. What questions do educators and home visitors ask you most often, and how do you address them?

1. What are the biggest barriers or challenges you face in supporting educators?

2. What are some common challenges educators face related to inclusion?

3. What are some common challenges educators face in working with families?

1. Probe: What about individualizing support to families during the IFSP/IEP process?

3. Now let’s turn to the resources you use most often in your work. What are your “go to” resources for supporting educators and home visitors, and what makes them so useful?

1. On what topics do you feel you already have sufficient resources to support your work?

2. What formats for support have you found most helpful (e.g., tutorials, videos, books, curricula, trainings, written resources, apps, community of practice), and why?

3. What formats for support do you not like, and why?

4. Now let’s transition to any gaps in supports for your work. What additional resources do you and/or the educators and home visitors you support need?

   1. On what topics do you or educators and home visitors need additional resources?

      1. Probe: Are there specific types of disabilities on which you need more resources?

   2. What are your and/or educators’ and home visitors’ most immediate needs? What are more long-term or ongoing needs?

4. In what format would you or educators and home visitors prefer to receive support (e.g., training, written resources, apps, community of practice)?

5. The National Center on Early Development, Teaching, and Learning is planning to develop an app to support work around inclusion, and we’d like to hear from you about things we should consider.

   1. Do you or the educators and home visitors you support use apps in their work?

      1. If yes, which apps and what do you like about them?

      2. If not, why not?

   2. What type of content and functionality would you like to see in an app?

      1. Probe: Thinking back to the areas of need you described a few minutes ago (facilitator recap responses), what needs do you think an app might help meet? Specific to your work? For teachers? For home visitors?

      2. Probe: What specific topics would you like to see covered in an app (e.g., staff mental health; IEP/IFPS meetings; difficult conversations with parents; challenging behaviors; classroom time management; classroom environment; how to individualize for children with disabilities; curricula)?

      3. Probe: What specific formats and functionality would you like to see in an app (e.g., videos; links to key websites, resources, webinars, or podcasts; gamified activities to help learn about inclusion; calendar feature to help with classroom time management; community forum to communicate with peers)?

6. Lastly, I’d like to ask you to dream big and tell us what it would look like for you and educators to be perfectly supported in your work around inclusion.

That’s all the questions we have for you today. Please feel free to contact either of us by email if there was anything you wanted to say but didn’t get a chance to do so. Thank you so much for your participation and for sharing your ideas!