Fostering Social and Emotional Understanding Among Three to Five Year Olds

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Fostering Social and Emotional Understanding
Among Three to Five Year Olds

• Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl, Ph.D.(1)
• Angela M. Jaramillo, M.A.(1)
• Michaela Gummerum, Ph.D.(2)
• Sarah Chapman-Chen
• Dianne Liscumb (3)
• University of British Columbia, Vancouver, CA (1)
• University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK (2)
• Westcoast Childcare Resource Centre (3)

Early Years Symposium Pre-Conference Event of
The Early Years Conference 2008 Vancouver,
January 31st, 2008
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Overview of Session

• Introduction and Background
• The Current Research on Young Childrens Social
  and Emotional Development
• From Theory to Practice Prevention Programs
• The Safe Spaces Program
• What is Safe Spaces
• Research Method and Design
• Preliminary Findings
• Implications and Discussion

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Part I

• INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

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Looking for the Positive A Focus Discerning
Strengths Seeing Young Children Thru a New
Lens
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The Need for a Strengths-Based Approach

• Resiliency Factors
• Individual characteristics
• Intelligence
• Personality (e.g., temperament, empathy, hope)
• Family and Peers (e.g., social support, cohesion)
• Schools and Communities (e.g., school belonging,
  significant adult)

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Discussion Stop

• What are your wishes for your childrens future?
• What skills will your children need to help them
  reach these goals?

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Part II.

• Making the case for promoting young childrens
  social and emotional competence

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Guided by Research

• Rigorous science provides an essential
  foundation for effective policies and practices.

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UNICEF 2007 Report Card

• The true measure of a nations standing is how
  well it attends to its children their health
  and safety, their material security, their sense
  of being loved, valued, and included in the
  families and societies into which they are born.

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UNICEF Innocenti Report Card 7,2007

• Child Poverty in Perspective
• An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries
• A comprehensive assessment of the lives and
  well-being of children and adolescents in the
  economically advanced countries.

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The 2007 Report Card assessed the well-being of
children in 21 nations of the industrialized
world. It attempted to measure and compare child
well-being under six dimensions

• 1. Material well-being
• 2. Health and safety
• 3. Educational well-being
• 4. Family and Peer relationships
• 5. Behavious and risks
• 6. Subjective well-being

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Average Ranking Position

• Netherlands 1st
• United States 18th
• Canada 11th

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How are children in Canada doing?

• Material Well-Being Canada ? 6th
• Educational Well-Being Canada ? 2nd
• Health and Safety Canada ? 16th
• Relationships Canada ? 18th
• Behaviours and Risks Canada ? 17th
• Subjective Well- Being Canada ? 15th

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Three Guiding Principles

• Development of the whole child.
• Attention to context.
• Relationships as central.

Developmental Psychology
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ATTACHMENT THEORY

• "Human beings of all ages are happiest and able
  to deploy their talents to best advantage when
  they experience trusted others as standing
  behind them."
• (p.25, Bowlby, 1973)

JOHN BOWLBY (1907-1990) Attachment Theory
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Major Goal of Developmental Psychology

• Finding early indicators of individual
  differences that facilitate or impede childrens
  present and future adaptation.
• Examining the way in which context interacts with
  individual characteristics to yield outcomes.

Urie Bronfenbrenner
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Urie Bronfenbrenners Contextual Perspective

• A childs unique development cannot be viewed
  without seeing the child in social and cultural
  context.
• It is important to recognize the multiple spheres
  of influence on childrens development.
• Everyday environments
• Families/Friends/Caregivers
• Social Institutions
• Schools/Neighborhoods/Communities
• Social Welfare Services
• Attitudes and ideologies of a culture

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Bronfenbrenners Ecological Model
Microsystem Family, School, Peers, and
Neighbourhoods
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Fostering Competence

• It is critical to the future of a society that
  its children become competent adults and
  productive citizens. Thus, society and parents
  are a stake in the development of competence and
  in understanding the processes that facilitate it
  and undermine it
• (Masten Coatsworth, 1998, p. 205)

Emotions
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Fostering Positive Development During Early
Childhood
families
community
Ecological Nutrients
peers
schools
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• Educating the Mind and Heart

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The Need to Balance Educating the Mind with
Educating the Heart

• Recently, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Archbishop
  Desmond Tutu said
• Educating the mind without educating the heart
  has produced brilliant scientists who used their
  intelligence for evil.
• Roundtable Dialogue, Balancing Educating the
  Heart with Educating the Mind
• April 20, 2004, Chan Centre, University of
  British Columbia

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• . . . emotional literacy is as vital as any
  other skill, and is particularly central to
  childrens ability to interact and form
  relationships.
• Susanne Denham
• Social and Emotional Prevention and
  Intervention Programming for Preschoolers, 2003

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Part III Focus of the Discussion
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Objectives

• WHAT is social emotional learning and social
  emotional competence?
• WHY is social emotional competence important?
• HOW can we foster childrens social and emotional
  competence?

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Take Home Messages

• The preschool years are a transitional point in
  development one in which there is an increased
  time of risk as well as an opportunity for
  intervention and prevention.
• There is an inextricable link between social
  emotional competence and school success this
  link becomes particularly salient during the
  transition to kindergarten.
• All research points to the importance of
  fostering young childrens social and emotional
  development.

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EMOTIONS MATTER!
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• Emotional Development
• What does the research say?

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• Making the Case for the Role of Emotions in Early
  Childhood Development

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• What is
• Emotional Intelligence?

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Books by Daniel Goleman
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Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional intelligence, "is a type of social
  intelligence that involves the ability to monitor
  one's own and others' emotions, to discriminate
  among them, and to use the information to guide
  one's thinking and actions" (Mayer Salovey,
  1993).

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IQ or EQ?

• IQ can contribute about 20 of success in life,
  that means another 80 is left. There are many
  ways in which your destiny in life depends on
  having the skills that make up social and
  emotional intelligence.

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Testing your EQ

• Youre on an airplane that suddenly hits
  extremely bad turbulence and begins rocking from
  side to side. What do you do?
• Continue to read your book or magazine, paying
  little attention to the turbulence.
• Become vigilant for an emergency, reading the
  emergency instructions card.
• Not sure-never noticed.

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Answer

• Anything but C
• that answer reflects a lack of awareness of
  your habitual responses under stress.

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Testing your EQ

• You had hoped to get an A in a course, but you
  just found out you got a C-. What do you do?
• Sketch out a plan for ways to improve your grade
  and resolve to follow thru on your plans.
• Resolve to do better in the future.
• Tell yourself it really did not matter how you
  did in the class.
• Go see your professor and try to talk her into
  giving you a better grade.

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Answer

• Correct answer A
• One mark of self-motivation is being able to
  formulate a plan for overcoming obstacles and
  frustrations and follow through on it.

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Testing your EQ

• Youre trying to calm down a friend who has
  worked himself up into a fury at a drive in
  another car who cut him off. What do you do?
• Tell him to forget it hes okay now and it is
  no big deal.
• Join him in putting down the other drive, as a
  show of respect.
• Tell him about a time something like this
  happened to you and how you felt, but then you
  found out that the driver was on the way to the
  hospital emergency room.

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Answer

• Best answer C
• Research on rage and how to calm it show the
  effectiveness of distracting the angry person
  from the focus of his rage, empathizing with his
  feelings and perspective, and suggesting a less
  anger-provoking way of seeing the situation.

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What are the Dimensions of Emotional Development?
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Key Dimensions of Emotion Competence

• Three key dimensions of emotion management
  skills
• Emotion encoding and decoding
• Emotional understanding
• Emotional regulation

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Skills of Emotional CompetenceFunctionalist
Approach (Saarni, 1999)

• Awareness of ones emotions
• Ability to discern others emotions
• Ability to use a vocabulary of emotions
• Capacity for empathy and sympathy
• Ability to understand that ones emotional state
  may not be related to expression of emotions
• Emotion regulation
• Awareness that emotions are communicated in
  relationships
• Capacity for emotional self-efficacy

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What is Social Emotional Learning? (see
www.casel.org)
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What is SEL?

• The process of developing social and emotional
  skills in the context of safe, caring,
  well-managed, and engaging learning environments
  .
• These skills include the ability to

• Recognize and manage emotions
• Care about and respect others
• Develop positive relationships
• Make good decisions
• Behave responsibly and ethically

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What Does SEL Address?www.casel.org
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A Few Recent Books

• Cohen, J. (Ed.) (2001). Caring Classrooms
  /Intelligent Schools The Social Emotional
  Education of Young Children. New York, NY
  Teacher's College Press.
• Elias, M.J., Arnold, H., Steiger C. (Eds.)
  (2002). EQ IQ Best Leadership Practices for
  Caring and Successful Schools. Corwin Press
  Thousand Oaks, CA.
• Zins, J., Weissberg, R., Wang, M., Walberg, H.
  J. (Eds.). (2004). Building Academic Success on
  Social and Emotional Learning What Does the
  Research Say? New York, NY Teachers College
  Press.

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COLLABORATIVE FOR ACADEMIC SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL
LEARNING(www.casel.org)
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Important Websites

• Collaborative for Academic and Social and
  Emotional Learning (CASEL)
• www.casel.org
• Centre for Social and Emotional Education
• www.csee.net
• Developmental Studies Center (Caring School
  Communities Project
• www.devstu.org

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• Recent Research Findings

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Emotional Development in Early Childhood 2-5
years (Izard et al., 2002)

• Rapid and remarkable advances during this age
  period increases in emotion regulation, emotion
  vocabulary, feeling-thought connections.
• This age period represents a sensitive period
  for developing accurate perception of emotion in
  self and others.
• The latter part of the preschool years in
  particular may represent a sensitive period for
  emotion-induction techniques that foster the
  development of empathy, sympathy, and prosocial
  orientation.

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Empathy The Critical Dimension

• Empathy, in particular, plays a critical role in
  helping individuals desist aggressive behaviors,
  and is one of the most desirable of personality
  traits because
• Not only does it provide a buffer against
  antisocial and aggressive behaviors,
• Empathy also is critical due to its positive
  association with prosocial behaviors (e.g.,
  sharing, helping, cooperating).

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Emotions Matter!
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Making the Case for Emotions

• Children who begin school without age-appropriate
  social and emotional competencies are at greater
  risk for school failure (Raver, 2002) .
• Children who are accepted by their peers or
  display prosocial behaviors tend to be high
  achievers, whereas children who are rejected and
  aggressive tend to be at risk for school failure
  (Dishion, 1990).
• Antisocial/aggressive behaviours are associated
  with both short-term and long-term adjustment
  problems, such as criminality, unemployment, and
  mental health problems (Broidy et al., 2003).

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Making the Case for Emotions (Contd)

• A growing body of literature suggests that a
  deliberate and comprehensive approach to teaching
  children social and emotional skills can
• Raise their grades and test scores,
• Bolster their enthusiasm for learning,
• Reduce behavior problems,
• Enhance the brains cognitive functions
• (Education Week, 2003).

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Recent Research Findings

• Social emotional literacy reduces violence and
  promotes prosocial behaviours (Schonert-Reichl,
  Smith, Zaidman-Zait, 2002 Weissberg
  Greenberg, 1998).
• Changes in academic achievement in Grade 8 could
  be better predicted from knowing childrens
  social competence 5 years earlier than from
  knowing grade 3 academic achievement (Caprara et
  al., 2000).
• Prosocial behaviours exhibited by students in the
  classroom were found to be better predictors of
  academic achievement than were their standardized
  test scores (Wentzel, 1993).

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Recent Research Findings

• Weissberg and Durlak (2007) conducted the
  largest ever quantitative analysis of more than
  207 research studies on SEL. Findings revealed
  that
• Students enrolled in an SEL program ranked at
  least 11 percentile points higher on achievement
  tests than students who did not participate.

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Research Findings (contd)

• compared with non-participating students, SEL
  students
• had significantly better attendance records
• their classroom behavior was more constructive
  and less disruptive
• they liked school more
• they had better grade point averages, and
• they were less likely to be suspended or
  otherwise disciplined.

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Neuroscience Social and Emotional Development

• Neuroplasticity The brain is plastic, built to
  change in response to experience.
• The prefrontal cortex is key and is a convergence
  zone for affect and cognition negative emotion
  will interfere with cognitive prefrontal
  function.
• Social-emotional learning is an empirically
  verified strategy to improve skills of emotion
  regulation and social adaptation. As such,
  social-emotional learning likely produces
  beneficial brain changes.
• Education literally shapes the childs brain and
  likely produces alterations that lay the
  foundation for all future learning, emotion
  regulation and social functioning.

CASELs 2007 Forum Dr. Richard Davidsons
presentation
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Neuroscience Social and Emotional Development
(Contd)

• Interventions, such as social-emotional learning,
  are expected to change brain function and
  structure and to promote adaptive emotional and
  cognitive functioning.
• Qualities such as patience, calmness,
  cooperation, and kindness are all best regarded
  as skills that can be trained.
• Research is critically needed to document the
  impact of social-emotional learning on the brain
• Conclusion Change the brain by training the
  mind through social-emotional learning.

CASELs 2007 Forum Dr. Richard Davidsons
presentation
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The Relation to School Success

• "Children's understanding of their emotions,
  their ability to talk about them, and their
  ability to read the emotion signals of others
  provide them with some very valuable skills that
  not only affect their personal and social
  adjustment but their academic performance, as
  well."
• (Izard, 2005)

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Early Emotional Adjustment Predicts Early School
Success

• Children's emotional and social skills are linked
  to their early academic standing (Wentzel
  Asher, 1995)

• Casual Link Academic achievement during the
  first years of schooling appears to be built on a
  firm foundation of childrens emotional and
  social skills (Ladd, Kochendorfer, Coleman,
  1997)

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The Importance of Peer Relationships
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Peers Can Have a Positive Influence

• Predicting childrens early school adjustment
  (Ladd, 1990)
• Children who begin kindergarten with a number of
  classroom friends during school entrance develop
  more favorable school perceptions by the second
  month.
• Making new friends in school is associated with
  gains in school performance.

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Early Emotional Adjustment Predicts Early School
Success

• Specifically, research on early schooling
  suggests that the relationships that children
  build with peers and teachers are based on
• Childrens ability to regulate emotions in
  prosocial vs. antisocial ways.
• Then, those relationships serve as a source of
  provisions that either help or hurt childrens
  chances of doing well academically.

Ladd, Birch Bubs, 1999
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Early Emotional Adjustment Predicts Early School
Success (Contd)

• Children with emotional difficulties are likely
  to lose out academically, in a number of ways
• Disruptive children are tough to teach.
• Emotionally negative, angry children may lose
  opportunities to learn from their classmates.
• Children disliked by peers and teachers grow to
  like school less, feeling less love for learning,
  avoid school more often, with lower attendance.

Berndt Keefe, 1995 Birch Ladd, 1997 Murray
Greenberg, 2000
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Part IV Making the Case

• While young childrens emotional problems are
  costly, results from interventions suggest that
  these problems are
• Identifiable early,
• Amenable to change, and
• Can be reduced over time.

Universal Prevention Programs
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Universal Prevention Programs

• It is important to consider universal and
  targeted prevention programming in the area of
  social and emotional development
• (Denham Weissberg, 2003).

• What can we do, as researchers and educators, to
  improve childrens social and emotional learning?
  

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Safe and Sound An Educational Leaders Guide to
Social and Emotional Learning Programs
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Safe and Sound Ratings of 80 Nationally
Available SEL Programs

• Ratings on Five key SEL competencies
• Program effectiveness Provides evidence of
  impact on student behaviors from well-designed
  studies
• Provides on-going support for professional
  development
• Promotes consistent use of student assessment
  tools
• Promotes use of classroom implementation supports
  to assess progress and guide improvement
• School-wide coordination, family partnerships,
  community partnerships

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When You Have A Problem

• STOP, CALM DOWN, THINK before you act
• Say the PROBLEM and how you FEEL
• Set a POSITIVE GOAL
• Think of lots of SOLUTIONS
• Think ahead to the CONSEQUENCES
• GO ahead and TRY the BEST PLAN

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Social and Emotional Learning Programs

• Examples of universal prevention programming in
  the SEL area.
• Curriculum for preschool-aged children.
• Have been selected based on the guidelines
  developed by CASEL for effective social and
  emotional learning programs.
• Guidelines for the evaluation of the Safe
  Spaces Program.
• Empirical evidence of program effectiveness and
  program implementation is required.

3 SEL Programs
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Social and Emotional Learning Programs
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The Safe Spaces Program
From Theory to Practice Prevention Programs
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What is the Safe Spaces Program?

• Universal primary preventive social emotional
  competence promotion program for preschool aged
  children.
• Focuses on fostering preschool-aged childrens
  emotional and social competence, promoting young
  children's helping, caring, and sharing
  behaviours, and on the other side, decreasing
  young children's aggressive and bullying
  behaviours.
• Modules Safe / Not Safe Friendly / Not
  Friendly Fair / Not Fair Emotions Problem
  Solving
• Four major concepts known as the Safe Spaces
  Rules (1)My body, (2) My feelings, (2)My work,
  and (4)My thoughts, ideas, and words are safe.

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What is the Safe Spaces Program? (contd)

• Concepts are taught via stories, puppet play,
  photographs, art activities, and in childrens
  everyday social interactions (e.g., emotion
  coaching)
• Ecological Focus -- creation of a positive social
  milieu in the centre where all children, staff,
  families feel valued and a sense of belonging.
• Piloted in one centre in Vancouver in 2001.
  Currently being implemented across BC.

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Areas where Safe Spaces trainers are located in
British Columbia, Canada
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Safe Spaces Centre RulesChildrens Circle Day
Care SocietyKamloops
To begin our Safe Spaces program we posted the
centre rules, the vocabulary, and the signing
vocabulary. We shared all of the information with
our parents. We took pictures of children being
friendly, showing their feelings, etc.
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Safe Spaces Baby Gallery Childrens Circle Day
Care SocietyKamloops
Our baby gallery consists of pictures of our
infants and their families. The children became
very involved as they would point at the
pictures. The parents also enjoyed the pictures
as they helped each parent become more familiar
with each other
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Circle Time and Puppets Childrens Circle Day
Care SocietyKamloops
Marta is our new friendwe introduced Marta and
talked about Marta being our friend. We sang a
song This is Marta, she is our new friend, she
has come to play with us today. How can we make
Marta feel welcome? The children shook hands
with her
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Safe / not Safe Childrens Circle Day Care
SocietyKamloops
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Friendly / not Friendly Childrens Circle Day
Care SocietyKamloops
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Friendly / not Friendly Childrens Circle Day
Care SocietyKamloops
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Hands Are Not Meant For Hitting Childrens
Circle Day Care SocietyKamloops
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Friendly JarChildrens Circle Day Care Society,
Kamloops
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Drawings (Samples)
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The Safe Spaces ProgramVideo Clip
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The Safe Spaces ProgramResearch Study
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The CHILD Projecthttp//www.earlylearning.ubc.ca/
CHILD/

• The Safe Spaces research study is a partnership
  between Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre and
  UBC and is part of a multi-disciplinary,
  academic-community partnership project, called
  The Consortium for Health, Intervention, Learning
  and Development (The CHILD Project).
• CHILD -- established to undertake research that
  responds to identified community needs and
  interests for the health of children 0 to 6 and
  their families.

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The CHILD Project

• CHILD -- will contribute to improve
  evidence-based policy development and more
  effective advocacy work, and ultimately provide
  better conditions for healthy child development
  in British Columbia and elsewhere.
• CHILD -- funded by the Social Sciences and
  Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.

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Evaluation Overview of The Safe Spaces Program

• Objective

• To evaluate both the short-term and long-term
  effectiveness of the Safe Spaces Program in
  promoting young childrens social, emotional, and
  behavioural competencies.

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Evaluation Overview of The Safe Spaces Program
(contd)

• Key Components of the Evaluation
• Link between theory and practice.
• Theoretical model Functionalist approach to
  emotions.
• Developmental evaluation methodology.
• Evaluation of a routine practice program
  (Wilson et al., 2003).
• Assessment of implementation promotion and
  integrity.
• Examine the link between exposure (dosage) to
  Safe Spaces and outcomes.
• Longitudinal design.

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Program Development PhasesPrevention Research
Center (Penn State University)Dr. Mark T.
Greenberg
An evaluation design to produce qualitative and
quantitative data and insight during the early
developmental phase of an intervention
Safe Spaces
An evaluation of the extent to which an
existing intervention produced a significant
change in a behavioral impact or health outcome
rate
Safe Spaces
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Research Activities to Date

• Phase One Implementation Evaluation
• Participants Staff at 5 child care centres in
  lower mainland implementing the Safe Spaces
  Program.
• Method Interviews, questionnaires (e.g., The
  Safe Spaces Implementation record log,
  Caregiver Buy-in, Caregivers Beliefs About
  Emotions).
• Some of the Findings Variability across child
  care centres, high levels of adherence and dosage
  to the Safe Spaces program, high quality of
  implemented activities, positive view of the
  Safe Spaces program, and reported the
  importance of leadership for program
  implementation.

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Research Activities to Date (contd)

• Phase Two Outcome Evaluation
• Participants Children and staff across 7 centres
  (i.e., Safe Spaces centres and comparison
  centres)
• Method One on one interviews with children,
  Early Childhood Educators questionnaires, etc.
• Measures Emotion knowledge, emotion
  understanding, moral sensibility, social
  competence (e.g., prosocial skills, bullying),
  program beliefs, etc.
• Longitudinal Design Following up children for 6
  and 12 months

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Research Activities to Date (contd)

• Research Supports
• Collaboration with Westcoast Child Care Resource
  Centre is essential.
• Cooperativeness across centres for doing research
• Research Challenges
• Cultural diversity (e.g., language issues).
• Transience of children in many of the centres.
• Variability of implementation across centres.

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The Safe Spaces Program Research Study Phase
Two Outcome Evaluation
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Preliminary Findings based on the Following
Information

• Setting
• 3 child care settings.
• Centres were chosen because they had received
  training in the Safe Spaces" program.
• Centres represented the range of centres in which
  the Safe Spaces program was implemented with
  respect to childrens race/ethnicity and SES of
  the families utilizing the centres.

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Preliminary Findings based on the Following
Information

• Participants
• 14 Early Childhood Educators, who had received
  training in the implementation of the Safe
  Spaces program.
• 27 preschoolers
• 17 boys (mean age 53.41months at Phase 2)
• 10 girls (mean age 52.10 months at Phase 2)
• Data were analyzed based on childrens exposure
  to the Safe Spaces program
• Safe Spaces (Children who were exposed to some or
  most of the Safe Spaces program).
• Comparison (Children who were not exposed to the
  Safe Spaces program)

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The Safe Spaces Program Research Study Phase
Two Outcome Evaluation Measures of
Social-Emotional Competence
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The Safe Spaces Research StudyPhase Two
Outcome Evaluation
Study Measures
Teacher Report

• Child Self Report

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The Safe Spaces Research StudyPhase Two
Outcome Evaluation (Contd)
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The Safe Spaces Research Study Teacher Report
Measures

• Child Behaviors with Peers Child Behavior Scale
  measures
• prosocial, antisocial/aggressive, and withdrawn
  behaviours with peers (Ladd Profilet, 1996).
• Teachers Ratings of Childrens Behavior Empathy
  and Peer Acceptance (Eisenberg, 1999).
• The Emotion Questionnaire (Rydell et al., 2003).
• Emotionality (Anger, Sadness)
• Emotional Regulation

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The Safe Spaces Research Study Child Self
Report Measures

• Test of Emotion Comprehension
• (Harris, Pons, Rosnay, 2003)
• Emotion Expression Labelling
• (Denham, 1986)

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• Test of Emotion Comprehension
• (Harris, Pons, Rosnay, 2003)

• Examines childrens understanding of emotions by
  assessing individual childrens ability to
  understand nine different components of emotions
• Components for Current Study
• Component I Recognition
• Component II External Causes

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Test of Emotion Comprehension (contd) (Harris,
Pons, Rosnay, 2003)
Component I Recognition
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Test of Emotion Comprehension (contd) (Harris,
Pons, Rosnay, 2003)
Component I External Causes
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• Emotion Expression Labelling
• (Denham, 1986)

• There are two types of measures
• Affective Labeling Via verbal naming and
  nonverbal pointing.
• Affective Perspective-Taking The child is
  required to label the emotion of a protagonist in
  each of 8 different stories representing four
  basic emotions.

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Emotion Expression Labelling (contd) (Denham,
1986)
Affective Labeling Expressive
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Emotion Expression Labelling (contd) (Denham,
1986)
Affective Labeling Receptive
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Emotion Expression Labelling (contd) (Denham,
1986)
Affective Perspective-Taking
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The Safe Spaces Research Study Child Self
Report Measures (Our Experience)
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The Safe Spaces Research Study Preliminary
Findings Teacher Reports
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Safe Spaces Exposure by Teacher Ratings of
Social Competence (Ladd Profilet, 1996)
Safe Spaces Goals Fostering Preschool-Aged
Childrens Emotional and Social Competence and
Decreasing Young Children's Aggressive and
Bullying Behaviours
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Safe Spaces Exposure by Teacher Ratings of
Social Competence (Eisenberg, 1999)

• Safe Spaces Goals
• Fostering Preschool-Aged Childrens Emotional and
  Social Competence.
• Ecological Focus Creation of a Positive Social
  Milieu in the Centre Sense of Belonging.

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Safe Spaces Exposure by Teacher Ratings of
Emotionality and Emotion Regulation (Rydell,
2003)
Emotional Regulation
Emotionality
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The Safe Spaces Research Study Preliminary
Findings Child Self Reports Change from Phase 1
to Phase 2
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Safe Spaces Exposure by Childrens Ratings of
Emotion Comprehension Change from Phase 1 to
Phase 2 (Harris, Pons, Rosnay, 2003)
Safe Spaces Goals Emotion Encoding and
Decoding Emotional Understanding Emotional
Regulation
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Safe Spaces Exposure by Childrens Ratings of
Affective Labeling and Perspective Taking Change
from Phase 1 to Phase 2 (Denham, 1986)

• Safe Spaces Goals
• Emotion Encoding and Decoding Emotional
  Understanding Emotional Regulation
• Fostering Preschool-Aged Childrens Helping,
  Caring, and Sharing Behaviours

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Conclusions

• It is critical to the future of our society that
  we identify the factors that assist children to
  become competent, caring adults and productive
  citizens.
• We all share a stake in the development of
  childrens emotional and social competence and in
  identifying the processes that facilitate or
  undermine it.
• The research supports the need for coordinated
  efforts that attend to the promotion of
  childrens positive academic and social-emotional
  development.

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Take Home Messages

• The preschool years are a transitional point in
  development one in which there is an increased
  time of risk as well as an opportunity for
  intervention and prevention.
• There is an inextricable link between social
  emotional competence and school success this
  link becomes particularly salient during the
  transition to kindergarten.
• All research points to the importance of
  fostering young childrens social and emotional
  development.

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Selected References

• Denham, S.A. (1998). Emotional Development in
  Young Children. New York The Guilford Press.
• Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence. New
  York Bantam Books.
• Saarni, C. (1999). The Development of Emotional
  Competence. New York The Guilford Press.
• Yun Dai, D. Sternberg, R.J. (2004). Motivation,
  Emotion, and Cognition Integrative Perspectives
  on Intellectual Functioning and Development.
  London Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
• Zins, J.E., Weissberg, R.P., Wang, M.C.,
  Walberg, H.J. (2004). Building Academic Success
  on Social and Emotional Learning What does the
  Research Say? New York Teachers College Press.
• Raver, C.C. (2002). Emotions matter Making the
  case for the role of young childrens emotional
  development for early school readiness. Social
  Policy Report, 16(3), 3-20.
• Hymel, S., Schonert-Reichl, K., Miller, L.D.
  (2006). Reading, riting, rithmetic and
  relationships Considering the social side of
  education. Exceptionality Education Canada,
  16(3), 149-192.
• Denham, S. A., Weissberg, R. P. (2004).
  Social-emotional learning in early childhood
  What we know and where to go from here. In E.
  Chesebrough, P. King, T. P. Gullotta, M. Bloom
  (Eds.), A blueprint for the promotion of
  prosocial behavior in early childhood (pp.
  13-50). New York Kluwer Academic/ Plenum
  Publishers.

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A Few Useful Websites

• www.casel.org Centre for Academic and Social and
  Emotional Learning
• http//www.goodcharacter.com/ (some good teaching
  guides)
• http//www.esrnational.org/ Educators for Social
  Responsibility
• http//www.uic.edu/orgs/ame/ Association for
  Moral Education
• http//www.casel.org/PromotingAcademicAchievement.
  pdf (a paper linking social - emotional learning
  to achievement)
• http//www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/character/charac
  ter-community-conf.pdf(papers presented at a
  conference on character and community presented
  at the Whitehouse in June, 2002)
• http//www.prevention.psu.edu/ (prevention
  programs and research)
• http//www.colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints/Default.ht
  m (Model programs)
• http//tigger.uic.edu/lnucci/MoralEd/ (Resources
  and research in moral education)

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Useful Websites (contd)

• Development Studies Center
• http//www.devstu.org/
• This center is dedicated to children's
  intellectual, ethical and social development.
  This site is a great resource for teachers. It
  outlines the centers school-based program as well
  as after school programs. Parents should check it
  out too. The center's website gives parents some
  direction in terms of their involvement in their
  children's development. It's a very comprehensive
  site.
• Studies in Moral Development and Education
• http//www.uicedu/Inucci/MoralEd/
• This provides a very in-depth look at moral
  development. There are links to the latest
  practices and activities in the area moral
  development. It highlights featured articles on
  issues of moral development and books of
  interest. You can also visit this site to see
  some of the classroom practices that are
  associated with moral development or join the
  mailing list. It's all here!
• Center for the Fourth and Fifth Rs Respect and
  Responsibility
• http//www.cortland.edu/www/c4n5rs/
• This center serves asa regional, state, and
  national resource in character education. A
  growing national movement, character education is
  essential to the task of building a moral society
  and developing schools which are civil and caring
  communities. THE CENTER disseminates articles on
  character education, sponsors an annual summer
  institute in character education, publishes a
  Fourth and Fifth Rs newsletter, and is building a
  network of "Fourth and Fifth Rs Schools"
  committed to teaching respect, responsibility and
  other core ethical virtues as the basis of good
  character.Character education holds that there
  are universally important ethical virtues such as
  respect, responsibility,trustworthiness,
  fairness, caring, courage, self-control, and
  diligence. Character means living by these core
  virtues -- understanding them, caring about them,
  and acting upon them.
• Lots and lots of links to related websites
• Roots of Empathy Primary Prevention Program
• http//www.rootsofempathy.org/
• This website provides detailed information about
  a classroom-based prevention program designed to
  foster empathy and prevent antisocial/aggressive
  in children in grades Kindergarten to grade 8.
• What is Roots of Empathy?
• It's a rich, vital, and highly rewarding
  classroom parenting Roots of Empathy that
  teaches human development and nurtures the growth
  of empathy. A baby and parent(s) visit a
  classroom once a month for a 10-month period. A
  Roots of Empathy instructor works with students
  before, during, and after each visit. Students'
  learn about parenting, about themselves, about
  how others feel, and teachers almost always learn
  something new about their students. All the
  learnings springboard from visits with the baby.
• The Search Institute
• http//www.search-institute.org/
• (From the description on the web)Search Institute
  is an independent, nonprofit, nonsectarian
  organization whose mission is to advance the
  well-being of adolescents and children by
  generating knowledge and promoting its
  application. Search Institute conducts research
  and evaluation, develops publications and
  practical tools, and provides training and
  technical assistance. The institute collaborates
  with others to promote long-term organizational,
  and cultural change that supports the healthy
  development of all children and adolescents.

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Contact Information

• Safe Spaces Program
• Westcoast Childcare Resource Centre
• http//www.wstcoast.org/
• Safe Spaces Research Study
• University of British Columbia/ University of
  Plymouth
• Kim Schonert-Reichl, PhD
• (kimberly.schonert-reichl_at_ubc.ca)
• Angela M. Jaramillo, MA
• (angelaj_at_interchange.ubc.ca)
• Michaela Gummerum, PhD
• (michaela.gummerum_at_plymouth.ac.uk)

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Thank you!