In the summer of 2024, The Design Team met as a group and selected to use a framework called Liberatory Design to guide this project. The process is grounded in several key principles including:
Equity-Centered
Prioritized the needs and experiences of marginalized communities to ensure that research outcomes benefit those who have been historically disenfranchised.
Participatory
Engaged stakeholders actively in the design and implementation of research projects, fostering a collaborative environment where all voices are heard.
Iterative
Encouraged a cycle of prototyping, feedback, and revision, allowing researchers to adapt and refine their approaches based on real-time insights from the community.
Transformative
Aimed to not only gather data but also enact change by building capacity within communities and challenging systemic injustices.
A full description of the process, as well as tools on how to implement it are available at liberatorydesign.com.
Method
Design
From the beginning, the Design Team made an important promise: community voices would lead the way. We talked to workers in different fields like home visiting, community health, mental health, child care, and pediatrics. We engaged both providers who work directly with families and young children, with program administrators and supervisors, and systems leaders in child welfare, early learning, early intervention and others. We learned about the challenges all these people face in expanding, diversifying, training, and retaining a strong workforce.
Procedures
We held:
11 focus groups for direct service providers (22 sessions total, two two-hour sessions per group).
7 focus groups for administrators (1 two-hour session per group).
13 interviews with 24 systems leaders (1 hour sessions).
Focus Group Structure
We intentionally held separate focus groups for direct service providers and administrators, to allow space for direct service providers to share fully without having their supervisors in the room. Systems leaders shared information through interviews with two of the design team members.
Service Providers:
First session:Shared stories and experiences.
Second session: Brainstormed solutions.
Administrators: Discussed challenges and solutions.
Systems Leaders: Discussed challenges and solutions.
Affinity Groups
To make sure different voices were heard, we held affinity groups for:
Spanish-speaking providers
Black/African American providers
Tribal or Native American providers
Providers of Color (BIPOC)
Male providers
Administrators also had affinity groups, including ones for BIPOC leaders and specific fields like Early Intervention, Behavioral Health, and Home Visiting. Two groups were open groups.
Held online via Zoom.
Participants completed a demographic survey.
The focus group was recorded and automatically transcribed with Zoom AI transcription.
Names of participants are kept private.
Participants were paid $50 per hour for their time.
How Focus Groups Worked:
We approached coding the data using an inductive thematic approach. In other words, we did not apply previously defined codes. Rather we reviewed the transcripts which led to the generation of themes, topics, and sub-topics. For example, there were a large number of comments on the need for and importance of staff support (topic) that presented itself in different ways (sub-topic), and fit under two of the overarching themes (themes).
Through an iterative process we identified 3 themes, 22 topics, and 27 sub-topics. Additional coding was conducted within the affinity groups to assure equitable representation. The affinity group Spotlights, thus, do a better job of reflecting the conversations and data generated within these groups. The Native American affinity group was coded at an additional level by two Native American Design Team members. Spotlights were generated by the Design Team members who led the affinity groups.
For more details, see Appendix 1 in the written report.