Promotion of school readiness in home visiting: creating a key driver diagram for continuous quality improvement

ABSTRACT

School readiness is a topic of great interest to early childhood and maternal child health initiatives, such as the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) programme. However, there is a lack of information about best practices or strategies in home visiting and their relative effectiveness in improving school readiness, making this topic appropriate for improvement through Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) methods. In 2022, Alabama developed a Key Driver Diagram (KDD) for improving school readiness efforts within the home visiting programme using synchronous online focus groups as a method of qualitative data collection with early childhood and home visiting experts. Findings from this study include development of a KDD that includes aims, key drivers, and secondary drivers. The KDD represents the first of many steps toward a unified theory of change. Future efforts will include development of a CQI change package and testing change ideas in the field.

KEYWORDS:

• School readiness
• early childhood education
• home visiting
• MIECHV
• continuous quality improvement school readiness

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education for their efforts to identify focus group participants and the participants for sharing their insights into the topic area.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heather Johnson

Dr. Heather H. Johnson, DrPH, MPH an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Organization, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Matthew Fifolt

Dr. Matthew Fifolt, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Organization, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Candace Knight

Dr. Candace Knight, PhD, RN, is Associate Professor of Nursing in the School of Nursing, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Martha Wingate

Dr. Martha Wingate, DrPH, is Professor and Chair in the Department of Health Policy and Organization, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

David Becker

Dr. David Becker, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Organization, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Julie Preskitt

Dr. Julie Preskitt, MSOT, MPH, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Organization, University of Alabama at Birmingham.