Table 3.

An adapted version of the Incredible Years (IY) teacher-training programme

Materials and content

The IY teacher-training curriculum includes content on partnering with parents, developing positive relationships with children, using praise and rewards to motivate children, preventing and managing inappropriate behaviour and teaching social skills, problem solving and anger management in the classroom

During the training, teachers were provided with handouts summarising the key content, cue cards and home-made bingo games to teach and reinforce content related to classroom rules, friendship skills, anger management and emotions, a small hand puppet, stickers and stamps to use as incentives, copies of ‘happygrams’ to share good news with parents and behaviour planning forms. Each school was also provided with a small amount of educational materials (e.g. blocks, manipulatives, play doh) to facilitate their use of the strategies with the children

Procedures

The IY teacher-training workshops include the use of videotape modelling, role plays and discussions and follow a collaborative model of training which emphasises participants applying skills and concepts to their own unique situations and engaging in individual and group problem solving. The IY curriculum activities were conducted in the morning sessions of the workshops. During the afternoon sessions, activities focussed on small group work followed by feedback to the larger group. Teachers also received practical classroom assignments to be completed after each workshop. Coaching sessions were aligned with the content covered in the previous workshop and included modelling the strategies, prompting the teacher to use them, providing supportive feedback and helping the teacher to problem-solve any difficulties that arose

Who provided

Teacher-training workshops were conducted by the first author who has extensive experience in training teachers and health workers in behavioural interventions. In-class consultations were conducted by a psychology graduate who had experience delivering the intervention during a previous pilot study and who received ongoing supervision and support from the first author

Where

Teacher-training workshops were conducted in a church hall in a central location in Kingston. Teachers were given a small stipend to cover transportation costs (US$2/workshop)

When, how and how much

Teachers attended eight full-day (6 h) workshops from November to April. A total of 56 intervention school staff were trained in the intervention (including teachers, principals and auxiliary staff). Four of these days were allocated in-service training days and teachers attended in two groups with 26–30 participants per group (i.e. training occurred over eight days). For the remaining four training days, one teacher at a time from each school attended workshop; teachers attended in four groups with 12–16 participants per group (i.e. training occurred over 16 days). In-class assistance and support was also provided to each intervention teacher once a month for four months (Jan–Apr) for approximately 1 h each session

A refresher intervention was provided, (after post-test measurements), in September and October of the following school year consisting of three additional in-class coaching sessions for each teacher. These sessions were designed to reinforce key aspects of the intervention: 1st session was on preventing child behaviour problems by using good classroom organisation skills; 2nd session was on promoting positive child behaviour through positive reinforcement; 3rd session focused on promoting children's social and emotional skills

Adapting to context

The teacher-training programme was adapted for the Jamaican preschool context in several ways. We dedicated less workshop time to watching video vignettes followed by discussion and more time on practical activities such as role plays and group work. Role plays and group activities were designed both to teach new concepts and skills and to help teachers practice and generalise previously introduced skills. These activities were based on scenarios common in Jamaican preschools. Card-sorting activities were designed to help teachers learn unfamiliar content (e.g. sorting labelled and unlabelled praise statements). Video vignettes were mostly of Jamaican preschool classrooms, supplemented by the original vignettes as necessary. New simplified handouts and classroom assignments were prepared with content and activities reflecting the Jamaican preschool context. Furthermore, new materials and activities were added to cater to the needs of teachers, many of whom had limited training, with a particular focus on classroom organisation skills and using play and interactive activities in teaching (especially in the context of limited resources, overcrowding and high child/staff ratios). New materials and activities were also designed to help teachers to fully integrate social and emotional skills into daily teaching and learning activities. Detailed notes of teachers strengths and needs were kept during each workshop and during in-class support sessions and these notes were used to inform the content and activities in the ongoing training

Modifications

Some modifications were made based on teachers’ individual needs during the in-class coaching sessions. For example, although the coaching was designed to support the content covered in the previous workshop, if a teacher had poor class control, the coach would work flexibly to cover basic classroom management.

How well (planned and actual)

The workshop facilitator completed a training protocol and self-evaluation after each workshop and the teachers completed workshop evaluations. All of the prescribed content was covered and teachers rated all aspects of the workshops (content, video vignettes, group leader skills and group discussion) as helpful or very helpful for each of the eight workshops. Seventy percent of teachers in the intervention group attended all eight training workshops and 95% attended at least six workshops. 89% of teacher participated in all four in-class consultations