2 - (SYM 103) Influence of a School Leadership Focused Implementation Strategy on Fidelity of Positive Greetings at the Door

Background: Implementation of evidence-based practices (EBP) that support youth social, emotional, and behavioral wellbeing in schools is fraught with challenges. School leadership behaviors can influence teachers’ implementation of EBP. Our study is testing an implementation strategy called Helping Educational Leaders Mobilize Evidence (HELM), iteratively adapted from the Leadership and Organizational Change for Implementation strategy, to support the penetration of a universal preventive intervention with high fidelity by improving school principals’ implementation leadership and climate.

Methods: We recruited 1 school district and 10 schools in western Washington. Five of the schools were randomized to receive the HELM strategy and the remaining 5 schools received an alternative leadership training as attention control (AC). Teachers at every school received training for a universal prevention intervention called Positive Greetings at the Door (PGD). The assistant principals at every school were trained to conduct PGD fidelity observations, which included rating 3 components of PGD, greeting students as they enter, giving students a high-interest activity, and reminding students of expected behaviors, as yes/no (where 1=Yes, 0=No), and rating 2 components, student responsiveness to the greeting and student engagement in the high-interest activity, on a 0-3 scale (3 = highest fidelity). Fidelity observations occurred 5 times from 10/19/2022 to 12/14/2022. Data collection is ongoing but will be completed prior to the presentation. Below, we calculated the means and standard deviations of these fidelity components to date.

Results: For components rated yes/no, the HELM schools had a mean of .84 and a standard deviation of .25. The mean and standard deviation of these components for AC schools were .87 and .27 respectively. For components rated 0-3, the HELM schools had a mean of 2.42 and a standard deviation of .54. The mean and standard deviation of these components for AC schools were 2.63 and .39 respectively.

Conclusion and Next Steps: So far, HELM schools and AC schools are delivering PGD with high fidelity. However, these data are preliminary and do yet examine penetration of PGD. We will be collecting additional data from January to May 2023, which will allow us to better understand the potential impacts of HELM on PGD penetration and fidelity over a larger time period. These data are important for developing implementation strategies to support penetration of EBP with high fidelity.