Head Start University Partnerships: Building the Evidence Base for ECE Workforce Well-Being

Cooperative agreements to USA and territories organizations and IHEs for research to improve the well-being of educational staff. Applicants are advised that required registrations may take up to four weeks to complete. Funding is intended to support projects that will contribute to the knowledge base regarding the individual, program, and community factors that promote the well-being of Head Start (HS) and/or Early Head Start (EHS) education staff (i.e., teachers and assistant teachers).
Projects must be led by researchers working in partnership with one or more HS programs. Together, they will identify and evaluate promising approaches to improving education staff well-being that are supported by existing research and evidence-based theory of change models. Eligible approaches include interventions or models intended to promote education staff wellbeing, including existing interventions or models of workforce support adapted to the HS/EHS context. Grantees will be expected to conduct an implementation study and causally evaluate the effectiveness of the approach(es) identified using the most rigorous research designs, methods, and analytic techniques that are appropriate and sufficient to address the research questions of interest. The primary outcome of interest is education staff well-being, particularly those aspects of well-being that are linked in existing research to classroom practices, teacher–child relationships, and other contributors to high-quality learning environments which, in turn, are associated with children’s successful development and learning. Further, each grantee will examine individual, program, and community context factors that contribute to education staff well-being. Results of these studies are expected to provide valuable information that can help guide programs in their decisions regarding strategies for improving education staff well-being.For program goals and expectations, seehttps://ami.grantsolutions.gov/files/HHS-2021-ACF-OPRE-YR-1967_0.pdf#page=6.