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Nobody studies early childhood for purely academic reasons; researchers鈥� studies hope to improve the lives of real kids. And the pandemic represents a once-(hopefully)-in-a-lifetime opportunity to revisit and reinvent care and education. Portland State University鈥檚 Beth Green practices a research method that seeks out and amplifies voices that society generally ignores. 鈥淲e co-create studies with the populations we鈥檙e studying,鈥� she says. 鈥淭his collaboration generates not just data but actionable recommendations.鈥�

Rooted in , this method focuses on how to improve services rather than simply evaluate their effectiveness. Professor Green says it entails more of a partnership than traditional methods of evaluation, working with staff and families to design, carry out and interpret the research. Recently, she teamed up with the Perigee Fund on the Parent Voices Study, which supports efforts to help families with children prenatal-to-3 who have been affected by trauma, racism and poverty.

Elizabeth Krause, director of programs at Perigee Fund, said 鈥淐OVID-19 disrupted the ability of early childhood and infant mental health programs to deliver services as they always have鈥攚ith regular, in-person visits. With the switch to telehealth during the pandemic, families got to experience a different way of accessing services that not only offered many benefits but also changed the way that parents participate in these programs altogether. This research was an opportunity to hear directly from families what worked and what didn’t work as program providers and funders consider what a post-COVID landscape looks like.”

The project complements what the field is learning from the RAPID-EC Project, which relies on surveys (). 鈥淩APID-EC and Parent Voices are both identifying important silver linings of the pandemic,鈥� says University of Michigan鈥檚 Christina Weiland, lead author of . The field is learning new ways of engaging with parents, in ways that hopefully will stick after the crisis is over.

Families with infants and toddlers often participate in programs delivered in the home, rather than in a child care setting. How these services shifted during the pandemic was the focus of the . Professor Green鈥檚 team at Portland State University worked with colleagues at the University of Connecticut and Georgetown University to conduct in-depth interviews with 100 parents and caregivers at seven early childhood organizations across the country. Parents acted as consultants to help create the study鈥檚 methodology and to understand and share findings. Researchers provided a programmatic stipend to the partner organizations as well as gift cards to participants. Professor Green and her colleagues will present their research at in March.

The interviews yielded three noteworthy, even surprising, discoveries that might inspire further research or, better yet, changes in the ways early childhood home visiting services, and infant and early childhood mental health services, are delivered:

1. There are more similarities than differences among sites. 鈥淲e designed the study purposefully,鈥� Professor Green explains, 鈥渢o discover the ways different types of programs have responded to the pandemic.鈥� And yet, in spite of varied service models, geographic locations and family characteristics between, for instance, a program serving Native American families in Michigan and another serving Black children in urban D.C., a great deal of consistency emerged from the interview responses.

The pandemic impacted the health and pocketbooks of families in all different areas of the country, and maintaining a skilled workforce stood out as a challenge in every instance. Not only were the impacts on families similar, but families told similar stories about what did or didn鈥檛 work for them as programs pivoted to remote approaches.

2. Flexibility, flexibility, flexibility. Technology can do more than we expected. Parents, caregivers and professionals alike deeply appreciated the extent that teleconferencing liberated them from travel and other logistical challenges of home visiting. 鈥淏efore the pandemic,鈥� Professor Green says, 鈥渁ll the evidence-based home visiting programs had strict requirements for certain practices, but we discovered that inflexibility was driving away higher-needs families and jeopardizing retention of those families.鈥�

3. Early childhood programs are a lifeline. The challenges experienced by parents and caregiver go beyond issues that directly affect their children. Work schedules fluctuated. Social services became both urgent and harder to access. Families without broadband were especially isolated. Through this period, clinicians and home visiting professionals provided far more support than what their job descriptions listed.

In Michigan, one tribal parent and caregiver reported, 鈥淭o be honest, during the pandemic, I was like, I don’t know if I really even want to do this anymore. It鈥檚 just on the phone and I’m just telling them about him. They’re not really seeing him. So, I was contemplating ending the program. But I noticed, they do help a lot with just making sure he’s on track with his progress, making sure that he’s meeting the milestones… I don’t know how to explain it, they’re always willing to work with the kids.鈥�

Another parent鈥檚 interview response highlighted the power of a brief text exchange: 鈥淲hen we鈥檙e not talking or whatever or I鈥檓 having a bad day, I get a text message from her.鈥� It鈥檚 like, how鈥檇 she know I鈥檓 not doing too great?鈥� I can talk to her like she鈥檚 my friend, but she鈥檚 not my friend. She鈥檚 my support person. It鈥檚 a big support for sure. I don鈥檛 trust a lot of people like I trust her.鈥�