Partners in School: Aligning Evidence-Based Practices Across Home and School through Coaching

Children with autism experience negative mental health outcomes when parents and teachers are not aligned in implementing the same evidence-based practices (EBPs). Partners in School is an implementation package that supports parents and teachers in implementing EBPs and ensures that those EBPs are aligned across home and school. It includes two implementation strategies – parent-teacher communication training and problem-solving consultation. Although preliminary findings with Partners in School is promising, a one-time communication training and consultation may be insufficient to promote aligned EBP implementation. Coaching is an effective strategy to support ongoing implementation; however, there is limited research on how coaching can facilitate cross-contextual alignment of EBPs. The goal of this community-partnered project is to add coaching as an additional implementation strategy to Partners in School. Aim 1 will be to co-design cross-contextual coaching through qualitative interviews with 15 parents and 15 teachers of children with autism. Aim 2 will be to test the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of adding coaching to Partners in School using a concurrent mixed methods design with 15 parent-teacher dyads. Outcomes will be measured at the implementation, parent/teacher, and child levels. Alignment of EBPs across home and school settings strengthens intervention dosage, intensity, and impact, and ultimately, bolsters quality of life.