Using the innovative design-thinking method to increase early social and emotional learning to strengthen vulnerable families

This project seeks to address the problem of providing social-emotional support to families with young children in child-care settings, with a special focus on children's transition from early learning and education spaces to the home or school, by applying design thinking to those transition moments. These moments include pick-up, drop-off, and transition to formal schooling. Supporting the social and emotional well being of families with young children is critical to fostering healthy early childhood development. Among the most critical settings for these families are early learning and education centers. These settings can be a source of stress, rather than support for families, because of poor quality and chaos. The design-thinking approach--a flexible, innovative process that facilitates better understanding of ambiguous and complex problems--will include formation of two design teams--one at Penn State University and one at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Each team will conduct empathic interviews with different stakeholders in families' lives, such as staff at child-care centers, parents, pediatricians, behavioral health specialists, and community group members and will generate ideas for prototypes to promote social-emotional support in moments of transition. These prototypes will be created by the Penn State team and discussed by thought leaders at a convening sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, tentatively planned for December 2015. The Penn State team will publicly share the prototypes and information gathered during the research process to inform the field, as well as the Foundation, about what is needed to promote the social and emotional well being of families with young children in early learning and education settings, even outside the moments of transition. The project will also inform our learning about the use of this design-thinking approach in these settings.