Partner institution: Wayne State University
This engagement was contracted through InGlobal Learning Design.
The challenge
“Baby Court” is an approach to family court cases involving infants and toddlers who have been placed in foster care. The Baby Court approach creates collaborative court teams that put the needs of babies and families at the center. The approach has gained momentum in recent years, but it requires the whole team — jurists, attorneys, social workers, and infant mental health clinicians — to learn new ways of performing their roles. In Michigan, this learning had begun with in-person trainings, but because of high personnel turnover in the court system, there was a constant need for trainings, and a need for a scalable training so that Baby Courts could be developed across the state. Wayne State University received a foundation grant to develop an online training for Baby Court. How might we create a set of modules that met the need of professionals in diverse roles to learn the Baby Court approach efficiently and effectively?
The process
The project team took a human-centered design approach to developing the online modules. In a series of meetings with an advisory board, made up of professionals in various roles who were experienced with Baby Court, we focused on defining target values and behaviors, which became the basis for the modules. Due to the pandemic, we met over zoom and used Miro as a collaborative whiteboard.
After considering a variety of different structures, including having different modules targeted at each role, the team decided to have one set of modules for everyone that followed a fictional family in Baby Court, from a call to Child Protective Services that led to removal of the children, through the overcoming of barriers with the support of the Baby Court team, and finally to reunification.
As the content developed, I began to create rough prototypes of modules, using a free version of Canvas LMS. At the same time, I explored options for a learning management system that could contain the training, as well as additional trainings that might be developed in the future.
We wanted a platform that could support a variety of interactive features, and that could be customized to offer an effective and pleasing user experience. Because this work was grant-funded and we could not count on substantial revenues or additional major funding after the grant period was over, ongoing license and maintenance costs needed to be kept low. The university had a license for Canvas LMS, but it was locked down tight and we weren’t allowed to make the kinds of modifications we wanted. After much negotiation, I was allowed to install an open-source version of Canvas on a university server. An H5P integration supported video, quizzes, and other interactive elements for a modest financial investment.
Two major rounds of user testing, plus a content review by professionals representing key roles in Baby Court, allowed us to refine the training so that the content was clear and the user experience was smooth. Revisions were prioritized and managed using a kanban board in Notion.
The solution
Ultimately we were able to make to make a dynamic and user-friendly experience that combines video, graphics, interactive elements, and text. Summative evaluations have indicated that the training is engaging and effective, and that the advisory board was crucial to the creation of a training that is accurate and that reflects the multiple perspectives of professionals who will make up Baby Court teams.