Social Emotional Wellness Program

This is a Teacher Program in Social-Emotional Wellness for Child Care Providers.  Ten Summit County Early Care and Education classrooms participate in the Program.  Participants include Family Child Care Homes and Child Care Centers.  The Program is delivered by an Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant (ECMH Consultant) and focuses on:

• Provider Training and Coaching around social-emotional development
• Peer education and support
• Consultation around individual child emotional/behavioral issues

Providers meet with the ECMH Consultant monthly.  Program content draws from ECE CARES (an Early Childhood Education Cares initiative in Colorado, which is funded through a U.S. Department of Education’s Safe Schools/Healthy Students Demonstration Grant and which provides training modules in the social-emotional development area of child development), DECA (the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment which was researched and authored by the Devereux Foundation and is a strength-based system designed to promote resilience - the ability of a child to make use of strengths and assets in his/her life to “bounce back” from trauma, frustration, conflict and similar challenges and which has been proven to be critical to a child’s health, including mental health, ability to cope, and avoidance of violence and delinquency), The Creative Curriculum and current best practices in the field of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation.  Content focuses on:

• Provider/ child interactions
• Environments
• Calming Strategies
• Provider stress management
• Activities that teach pro-social skills
• Bibliotherapy
• Provider driven topics
• Families as partners
• Screening and Assessment
• Curriculum Planning for Social Emotional skills

Sponsored by Early Childhood Options and Colorado West Mental Health Center