College of Social Work, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA.
College of Public Health and Human Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
Gerontologist. 2022 Mar 28;62(3):385-396. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnab161.
Intergenerational programs, those engaging youth and adults of nonadjacent generations in shared programming for mutual benefit, are attracting increasing attention from funders, policymakers, and practitioners for the range of goals they can support. The mechanisms by which these goals are achieved are rarely studied. To address this gap, we analyzed the associations between specific intergenerational implementation practices and younger and older participant outcomes.
Activity leaders at 5 sites serving adults and preschoolers received training to implement 14 evidence-based practices during intergenerational activities involving 84 adults (M = 75.25 years; range = 55-98) and 105 preschool participants (M = 3.26 years; range = 2-5) over 4 years. Measures of activity leaders' implementation of these practices and participants' behavioral responses to programming were gathered. We utilized multilevel modeling to test whether variations in implementation of practices were associated with variations in participants' responses to programming on a session-by-session basis.
For both preschool and adult participants, analyses revealed that the implementation of certain practices was associated with significantly more intergenerational interaction. When more practices were implemented reflecting factors of (a) participant pairing and (b) person-centered care, both child and adult intergenerational interactions were higher.
Practices used by intergenerational activity leaders during programming help to explain within-person responses of both child and adult participants. Intergenerational relationships may be a powerful means to achieve diverse goals; they depend on skillful practice by trained activity leaders.
代际项目是指让青年和非相邻代的成年人共同参与互惠互利的项目，这些项目正吸引着越来越多的资助者、政策制定者和实践者的关注，因为它们可以支持各种目标。这些目标实现的机制很少被研究。为了弥补这一空白，我们分析了特定代际实施实践与年轻和年长参与者结果之间的关联。
在 5 个服务于成年人和学龄前儿童的地点，活动负责人接受了培训，以便在涉及 84 名成年人（平均年龄为 75.25 岁；范围为 55-98 岁）和 105 名学龄前儿童（平均年龄为 3.26 岁；范围为 2-5 岁）的 4 年期间，实施 14 项基于证据的实践。收集了关于活动负责人实施这些实践的措施和参与者对编程的行为反应的措施。我们利用多层次建模来检验实践实施的变化是否与参与者在每节课上对编程的反应变化相关。
对于学龄前儿童和成年参与者，分析表明，某些实践的实施与更多的代际互动显著相关。当更多反映（a）参与者配对和（b）以人为主导的关怀因素的实践被实施时，儿童和成人的代际互动都更高。
代际活动负责人在编程过程中使用的实践有助于解释儿童和成人参与者的个体反应。代际关系可能是实现多样化目标的有力手段；它们取决于训练有素的活动负责人的熟练实践。
