School Readiness Promotion in Primary Care: Latino Parent Feedback on Interventions and Programs

To explore the feasibility and acceptability of interventions to promote school readiness (SR) in primary care through qualitative analysis of "SR Design Maps" created by Latino families.

Caregivers participated in design thinking to assess benefits, barriers, and desirable characteristics of eight SR interventions to create a final SR Design Map. Qualitative analysis included a content analysis to determine the frequency of each intervention and deductive theme analysis to create a summary of key features, content, and timing preferences. Two coders completed analysis in the source language.

Participants included 32 Latino caregivers from four Oregon clinics with primarily US born children with preschool experience. Most caregivers were monolingual Spanish or bilingual-speakers, born in Mexico, with a high school education or higher. Across 16 distinct "SR Design Maps," 100% included SR Coaching, preschool navigation, library information, and a community coordinator; most included a SR Checklist (92%), TipsByText (88%), and parent groups (81%). The most desired and feasible interventions were Coaching, preschool navigation, SR Checklist, library information, and TipsByText. A "future state" model compiles caregiver preferences from birth to age 5 years.

Latino families gave detailed feedback to integrate multiple SR interventions from pregnancy to 5-year-old well-child visits. Families were most interested in an overview of SR skills (SR Checklist), tips for early math and literacy at home (SR Coaching, TipsByText), preschool information and application support, and reminders about library programs. These findings inform a culturally responsive package of interventions to promote SR in primary care.