Return to Learn ECHO: Telementoring for School Personnel to Help Children Return to School and Learning After Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Details

• Alternative Title:
  J Sch Health
• Personal Author:
  McAvoy, Karen ; Halstead, Mark ; Radecki, Linda ; Shah, Amy ; Emanuel, Anjie ; Domain, Stephanie ; Daugherty, Jill ; Waltzman, Dana
• Description:
  BACKGROUND:
  
  Return to learn (RTL) after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) presents unique challenges for school professionals. A multidisciplinary team approach is necessary yet training school professionals is logistically difficult. This paper describes an innovative pilot RTL program and its evaluation.
  
  METHODS:
  
  Utilizing the telehealth/telementoring program Project ECHO® (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes), this study utilized a multidisciplinary team of subject matter experts to deliver five 1-hour sessions across 5 cohorts of school-based professionals (total of 133 participants). The evaluation used a mixed-methods approach of post-session and post-program participant surveys and post-program participant focus groups.
  
  RESULTS:
  
  Participants who completed a post-program survey reported statistically significant improvements in essential aspects of RTL knowledge and self-efficacy. This included improvements in how to manage a student with an mTBI (44.8% to 86.9%), benefits of early return to school for students following mTBI (31.8% to 86.9%), and the importance of written RTL policies/procedures (55.1% to 97.1%).
  
  CONCLUSIONS:
  
  This study demonstrates that RTL training via a telementoring approach may be a positive and effective way to train school-based professionals and improve knowledge and self-efficacy, especially when attending face-to-face trainings are difficult. This model has the potential to produce programmatic and systematic improvements for RTL education.
  
  
• Keywords:
  Brain Concussion Child Humans Learning Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Project ECHO Return To Learn Return To Play Return To School Schools Students Telementoring

  More +
• Source:
  J Sch Health. 92(12):1194-1201
• Pubmed ID:
  36375807
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC9680044
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/ ; NU38OT000282/CC/CDC HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  92
• Issue:
  12
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:77b7bcb807a2e2e36a20ad124d6ab64d700b4f69d1eaa4091d4c9b6bb1ae972a
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/122642/cdc_122642_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 84.96 KB ]