![[ Visit Client Website ]](images/banner.gif)
To conduct a qualitative meta-synthesis of published and publicly available FAN research to enhance understanding of how and why FAN is associated with positive outcomes for supervisors, practitioners, and parents/caregivers across service settings for young children and their families. Our focus was on identifying positive changes among service providers and supervisors. We hypothesized that FAN-trained providers and supervisors would report improved family engagement, collaboration, and attunement, increased effectiveness at work, and reduced burnout. We explored extent to which outcomes varied or remained stable when FAN is implemented in different service settings.
METHODS
This meta-synthesis examined qualitative findings from three FAN studies. The coding team identified codes beginning with a deductive approach (applying codes representing FAN core processes) and engaged in an iterative, inductive approach to develop the full coding scheme. After reaching reliability, all studies were coded and analyzed using Atlas.ti 23.
RESULTS
Analyses from the studies on Early Intervention (EI), pediatrics, and mentoring suggest that FAN-trained service providers are more collaborative, effective, and better at taking the perspective of parents/clients (Pediatric resident: “I think it gives a lot of power back to patients and parents, and I think it returns the focus more to them.”). Supervisors indicated they were more collaborative, effective, attuned, and able to highlight supervisees’ strengths. Improved collaboration and family engagement was observed across service settings, as was increased effectiveness and efficiency (Pediatric resident: "You get to the primary concern faster. We get to solutions faster. We build rapport quicker and stronger. I think all those things have been results of using the FAN.”).
Providers reported that FAN increased their perspective-taking, empathy, and understanding of differences between themselves and families (EI provider: “[FAN added] a whole other dimension to what they are doing” and allowed them to “see families with a new lens.”). Finally, findings suggest FAN increases job satisfaction and reduces burnout (Mentor supervisor: “If [FAN hadn’t been used], he wouldn’t have been able to tell me how he was feeling. I think he would have felt burnt out and would have given up;” EI provider: "What we do is important. I mean, how many people can come home from their job and say, I did something important today?”).
Codes that co-occurred most frequently were: (a) increased provider-parent/client collaboration and providers’ effectiveness at work; and (b) increased provider self-awareness and improved capacity to work with clients when they express their feelings. These findings suggest that FAN-trained providers work more collaboratively and with better self-awareness, which enables them to be more effective in their relationship-based work with parents and other clients.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
FAN is a promising tool for engaging and strengthening relationships between service providers and families and between supervisors and their supervisees, in turn promoting progress toward program and family goals. We will engage the audience in discussion about potential underlying mechanisms of FAN from a qualitative perspective and additional research needed to further elucidate FAN’s effectiveness.