Supporting Social and Emotional Learning in the Capitol Region’s Early Childhood Settings ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ________________ **Overview** The purpose of this three-year research-to-practice partnership (2019-2022) was to contribute to our vision for the Capitol Region where emotions matter and its residents have universal access to high-quality social and emotional learning (SEL) and who are empowered to be healthier, more productive, and compassionate. Our strategy was to impact the key adults in children's lives while transforming the community, school, and families systems of their education and care. The Hartford Early Childhood SEL Initiative sought to: 1. offer access to high-quality SEL to family-based childcare educators in the Hartford, CT region; 2. work with existing community stakeholders to find unique ways to evaluate community impact of SEL programming by leveraging new and existing data; 3. collaborate with a group of local Parent Leaders to develop and prototype high-quality, accessible, relevant, and culturally responsive and inclusive resources—[Stories for Growth: Making Meaning of Emotions][1]—to enhance family (and the practice of emotional intelligence in the home) and family-childcare educator emotional intelligence. Over three years (2019–2022), the initiative trained 35 family childcare educators in RULER, collected community data across 10 towns in and around Hartford, and collaborated with local parents to develop a series of seven videos, eight workshops, and a companion workbook that can be used by community service agencies and other groups to promote SEL and well-being. Partners for this project include the [Hartford Foundation for Public Giving][2], [City of Hartford Early Learning Division][3], [City of Hartford Family Child Care Network][4], [All Our Kin][5], [Fathers in Education][6] with Tony Nelson, the National Mobilization Director, serving as the Parent Leader Coordinator, seven Hartford Parent Leaders who've recently formed their own organization, Parents Leading the Way to SEL (Lovey Brown, Vincent Hatten, Ivoni Montes, Carmen Morales, Bobie Jo Parker, Susan Sarmiento, and Maria Vasquez), and [Poulomi Mukherji, Animation Director][7]. Annual project reports are located under **[OSF Storage/1_Reports.][8]** ---------- Goal 1: Offer access to high-quality SEL to family-based childcare educators in the Hartford region. Our grant called for bringing RULER to licensed family-based childcare educators across Hartford, West Hartford, East Hartford, and Windsor, who as a group are historically overworked and underserved. In collaboration with All Our Kin in 2019 and the City of Hartford in 2021, the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (YCEI) trained two cohorts of family childcare educators in RULER reaching 35 local educators (70% Spanish-speaking) in total. The RULER content and training was delivered in English and Spanish. Given interest expressed by educators, we have discussed with the City of Hartford the potential to conduct the RULER training series with additional cohorts of educators contingent on additional funding. With support from local strategic partners (e.g., City of Hartford, All Our Kin), SEL professional development resources have been designed and strengthened to support licensed family-based childcare educators in Hartford and across Connecticut. Facilitating RULER training for online and in-person settings has also afforded YCEI the opportunity to develop training content that supports both in-person and online delivery formats, increasing our capacity to train and coach within existing networks. With greater capacity within the City of Hartford, more family childcare educators will have access to high-quality SEL opportunities through RULER as well as strengthened supports for implementation. ---------- Goal 2: Work with existing community stakeholders to find unique ways to evaluate community impact of SEL programming by leveraging new and existing data. **Feedback from Hartford Family Childcare Educators:** Feedback from local providers (70% Spanish-speaking) who participated in the 2019 RULER Institute for Family Childcare Educators training was positive with average ratings of 3.76 out of 4 (1=Strongly Disagree, 4=Strongly Agree). The item with the lowest ratings was 3.61 (“I believe personally using the Mood Meter has the potential to positively impact my ability to do my job.”) and the item with the highest rating was (“I learned new ideas for teaching emotions in my classroom.”). What participants noted that they enjoyed the most was they learned more about emotions/emotional intelligence and that the trainers were engaging and shared personal stories. Participants also reported that they were excited to help children recognize and identify their emotions more accurately. A summary of Hartford educator feedback is located under **[OSF Storage/2_Community Feedback][9]**. **Feedback from the Hartford Community:** In January and February 2020, we asked the group of Parent Leaders to interview people in their communities (e.g., parents, grandparents, early childhood teachers, home daycare educators, etc.). Data from the community helped identify core values, beliefs, strengths, and needs within their respective cultures and communities and across the Capitol Region. Our Parent Leaders collected feedback from community members in Glastonbury, Wethersfield, New Britain, East Hartford, Hartford, West Hartford, Manchester, Enfield, Bloomfield, Middletown, and Newington. In addition, the Parent Leaders also provided their feedback. YCEI analyzed and presented the qualitative data in the summer 2020 to inform the development of our videos and resources. The Hartford Community Feedback Reports are located under **[OSF Storage/2_Community Feedback][10]**. ---------- Goal 3: Foster a collaboration with local Parent Leaders to co-develop and prototype six high-quality, accessible, relevant, and culturally responsive and inclusive videos and supplementary resources to enhance family and family childcare educator emotional intelligence. **Story-based Videos:** Between January 2020 and June 2022, the YCEI team collaborated with seven local Parent Leaders and an animator, Poulomi Mukherji, to develop seven story-based animated videos, called **Stories for Growth: Making Meaning of Emotions.** Stories were at the core of learning and growth within the parent leadership group. With each video narrated in his or her voice, the Parent Leaders share unique stories where they reflect on their lived experiences and how this multi-year journey has transformed them and impacted their growth and the well-being of their children, families, and community. - **To view all seven videos, visit https://vimeo.com/showcase/9813535.** **Supplementary Resources:** In addition to the seven videos, supplementary resources developed for **Stories for Growth: Making Meaning of Emotions** includes: eight video-based workshops centered around these original stories from the lives of parents, grandparents, and other caregivers; the companion workbook for workshop participants; and a facilitator’s guide. Our hope is that these resources will support others to understand and unpack these stories in a way that supports well-being for families and healthy development for children. These resources can be used by families, communities, school districts as well as center- and home-based educators to strengthen family emotional intelligence, family engagement and support educator professional development. By creating resources that include the concerns, examples, and the voices of local parent leaders, we anticipate increasing access and opportunities for others in the community to feel seen, understood, and engaged in learning about emotions and to have a set of skills and practices they can use to support themselves, their children, and their communities. The videos and supplementary workshop materials will be hosted publicly so that these resources are universally accessible to support diverse cultures (e.g., socioeconomic, racial/ethnic) and contexts (i.e., home, school, community) while meeting local needs that were identified through our community feedback efforts. - **To learn more about Stories for Growth: Making Meaning of Emotions, please [click here][11].** ---------- Next Steps: Continuation of this work. **Parents Leading the Way to SEL:** Our Parent Leaders have formed their own organization, “Parents Leading the Way to SEL,” to pilot this video-based workshop series in English and Spanish across the Hartford community. A primary goal of Parents Leading the Way to SEL is to provide support and encourage parents, educators, and families to take active roles in their children’s social and emotional well-being with a focus on emotion regulation skills and emotional empowerment. Parents Leading the Way to SEL have been networking across Hartford, giving presentations in the community to (1) promote family emotional intelligence, (2) share the video-based workshop series opportunity, and (3) build community partnerships. Parents Leading the Way to SEL seeks ongoing funding to support their efforts in delivering the **Stories for Growth: Making Meaning of Emotions** workshops series in Hartford communities to increase equitable community access to high-quality SEL programming and resources. - **For more information or if you are interested in connecting with Parents Leading the Way to SEL, contact Mr. Tony Nelson at [parentsleadingtheway@gmail.com][12].** **Presentations:** In March 2022, the YCEI team presented at the annual RULER Implementation Conference to over 2,000 school leaders and educators from across the world. Our presentation was titled, “7 Parent Leaders + YCEI = A New Community-Centered Approach to Exploring Emotions at Home”. The presentation offered an overview of our community-based model, our process, and key learnings with guidance for how schools could apply these ideas in their own programs to promote family engagement and strengthen community partnerships. After reflecting on our 3-year process, the YCEI team identified four important levers which created the conditions for this work to be successful and replicated in other communities: - (1) Recruit a community liaison, - (2) Prioritize relationship-building, - (3) Engage in peer learning and experiential learning, and - (4) Have a shared purpose. These core takeaways can be applied to a number of learning environments, within homes and families, center-based early childhood programs, childcare educators in the home, and schools. Creating these smaller learning communities across diverse contexts and settings can have a transformative ripple effect within a larger community. Presentations are located under **[OSF Storage/3_Presentations.][13]** **Papers:** The YCEI team is writing a paper, “A Community-based Model for Equitable Access to Community-based SEL,” to document and offer a framework for others to replicate this work and build local capacity for high-quality social and emotional learning to support families, schools, and communities. We will describe our transformative community-based partnership and reflect on what we’ve learned through this project over the past three years and will focus on our story-centered approach to exploring emotions with families and early childhood educators. Parent Leaders are invited to contribute as co-authors on the paper. Papers will be posted under **[OSF Storage/4_Papers.][14]** **Two video premiere events are being planned for 2022 and 2023** at Yale University’s Child Study Center and locally in Hartford with our goals to promote these resources within the community at large, network with other local organizations, and gain valuable community feedback for continued development of resources. ___________________ [1]: https://osf.io/8jr7x/ [2]: https://www.hfpg.org/ [3]: https://www.hartfordct.gov/Government/Departments/DFCYR/DFCYR_Early-Learning [4]: https://www.hartfordct.gov/Government/Departments/DFCYR/DFCYR_Early-Learning/DFCYR_HFCCN [5]: https://allourkin.org/ [6]: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Organization/Fathers-In-Education-INC-471296689667634/ [7]: https://www.poulomimukherji.com/ [8]: https://osf.io/q6t7n/files/osfstorage [9]: https://osf.io/q6t7n/files/osfstorage [10]: https://osf.io/q6t7n/files/osfstorage [11]: https://osf.io/8jr7x/ [12]: http://mailto:%20parentsleadingtheway@gmail.com [13]: https://osf.io/q6t7n/files/osfstorage [14]: https://osf.io/q6t7n/files/osfstorage