Wilkinson Kath, Berry Vashti, Lloyd Jenny, Marks Georgina, Lang Iain
College of Medicine and Health, University of Exeter, St Luke's Campus, Heavitree Road, Exeter EX1 2LU, UK.
Action for Children, Chestnut Family Hub, Exeter EX2 6DJ, UK.
Children (Basel). 2024 Jul 26;11(8):901. doi: 10.3390/children11080901.
Community champions have been employed across various settings to disseminate evidence-based public health information. The Building Babies' Brains programme trains champions to work with parents in communities, equipping them with child development knowledge and parental engagement strategies. We explored what makes community champions effective in distributing information to parents, including how the champion-parent relationship and champions' personal characteristics affect information dissemination.
Champions included both peers and professionals working with parents in target communities. We administered an online survey ( = 53) and follow-up interviews ( = 14) with champions, with representation from across all training cohorts. We conducted a realist-informed reflexive thematic analysis to generate themes in the data and highlight the contexts, mechanisms, and outcome patterns identified.
We observed 15 Context-Mechanism-Outcome configurations across five themes: information sharing opportunities, information relevance, the nature of the champion-parent relationship, interaction expectations, and champion confidence. Our programme theory for how the community champion approach works identified that peer champions focused more on building rapport, modelling behaviours, and being a trusted community resource than direct information transfer. Professional champions, in contrast, showed greater expertise and confidence in discussing parenting practices directly. For both groups, traits such as friendliness and the ability to establish a trusting relationship enhanced effectiveness.
This research identifies the impacts of champion role, characteristics, and the champion-parent relationship on the effectiveness of knowledge mobilisation in this context, with implications for training and recruitment of champions. Those using a champion model in comparable settings should ensure that champions have the necessary knowledge, skills, and confidence to engage parents and share information effectively.
社区倡导者已被应用于各种场景，以传播基于证据的公共卫生信息。“构建婴儿大脑”项目培训倡导者在社区与家长合作，为他们提供儿童发展知识和家长参与策略。我们探讨了使社区倡导者有效向家长传播信息的因素，包括倡导者与家长的关系以及倡导者的个人特征如何影响信息传播。
倡导者包括在目标社区与家长合作的同行和专业人员。我们对倡导者进行了在线调查（n = 53）和后续访谈（n = 14），涵盖了所有培训群体。我们进行了基于现实主义的反思性主题分析，以在数据中生成主题，并突出所确定的背景、机制和结果模式。
我们在五个主题中观察到15种背景 - 机制 - 结果配置：信息共享机会、信息相关性、倡导者与家长关系的性质、互动期望和倡导者信心。我们关于社区倡导者方法如何起作用的项目理论表明，同行倡导者更侧重于建立融洽关系、示范行为以及成为受信任的社区资源，而不是直接传递信息。相比之下，专业倡导者在直接讨论育儿实践方面表现出更高的专业知识和信心。对于两组来说，友好和建立信任关系的能力等特质提高了有效性。
本研究确定了倡导者角色、特征以及倡导者与家长关系对这种情况下知识动员有效性的影响，对倡导者的培训和招募具有启示意义。在类似场景中使用倡导者模式的人应确保倡导者具备必要的知识、技能和信心，以有效地与家长互动并分享信息。
