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The Expansion of a Parent-Focused Physical Literacy Intervention for Early Childhood to Families Experiencing
Valerie Carson1, Morgan Potter1, Yeongho Hwang1
1University of Alberta.
Insights
The PLAYshop program improved parents' capability, opportunity, and motivation to support children's physical literacy. While effective for vulnerable families, recruitment challenges and low booster lesson access were noted.
Area of Science:
- Child Development
- Public Health Interventions
- Parent Education
Background:
- Early childhood physical literacy is crucial for long-term health.
- Families experiencing vulnerability face barriers to accessing resources supporting physical literacy.
- Parental involvement is key in fostering physical literacy in young children.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the efficacy of a virtually delivered, parent-focused physical literacy intervention (PLAYshop) for vulnerable families.
- To assess the implementation of the PLAYshop intervention, including satisfaction, facilitators, and barriers.
- To determine the impact of PLAYshop on parental capability, opportunity, and motivation regarding children's physical literacy.
Main Methods:
- A randomized controlled trial involving 35 parents of preschool-aged children.
- Intervention group received PLAYshop (workshop, resources, app support); control group received standard care.
- Efficacy measured by parental capability, opportunity, and motivation; implementation assessed via questionnaires and interviews.
Main Results:
- The intervention group showed significant increases in parental capability, opportunity, and motivation compared to the control group.
- Parents reported high satisfaction and usefulness of the PLAYshop workshop and implemented active play.
- Recruitment was challenging, with only 31% accessing booster lessons.
Conclusions:
- The PLAYshop intervention demonstrates efficacy in enhancing parental capacity to support early childhood physical literacy, particularly for vulnerable families.
- Implementation challenges, such as recruitment and booster lesson engagement, need to be addressed.
- Integrating PLAYshop into existing agency programs may improve reach and effectiveness.
Abstract:
Examine the efficacy and implementation of the expansion of a virtually delivered, parent-focused physical literacy intervention for early childhood called PLAYshop to families experiencing vulnerability. A randomized controlled trial was conducted in 35 parents (intervention: 16; control: 19) of preschool-aged children (3-5 years) from Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. PLAYshop included educational training (i.e. workshop), educational and material (i.e. handouts, active play equipment) resources, and follow-up support via an app with four bi-weekly booster lessons. Primary efficacy outcomes, including parental capability, opportunity, and motivation to support preschool-aged children's physical literacy development, were measured at baseline and post-workshop (intervention group)/1-week post-baseline questionnaire (control group). Secondary implementation outcomes (satisfaction, perceived usefulness, facilitators, barriers, and dose) were measured in the parental questionnaire and explored via parent (n = 11), agency partner staff (n = 9), and workshop leader (n = 3) interviews. Repeated measures analyses of variance (RM ANOVAs) were conducted. Increases in parental capability (i.e. knowledge: partial η2= 0.124; p = .038), opportunity (i.e. perceived availability of resources: partial η2= 0.420; p < .001), and motivation (i.e. confidence: partial η2= 0.128; p = .035) to support preschool-aged children's physical literacy development were observed in the intervention group, compared to the control group. All intervention parents found the workshop useful/extremely useful, were satisfied/extremely satisfied with the workshop content and delivery, and reported in interviews implementing physical literacy-related active play. Recruitment was challenging, and only 31% accessed ≥ 1 booster lesson. Efficacy for the PLAYshop intervention was observed for some outcomes in families experiencing vulnerability. Incorporating PLAYshop into existing programs of partner agencies may address implementation challenges.Trial Registration: NCT05436197.
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