promoting a thinking strategies...feelings travelling bear (elmcroft nursery school) taking photos...
TRANSCRIPT
PAThSPromoting Alternative Thinking Strategies
Information Session
• PATHS teaches children about emotion in an innovative, highly structured way.
• PATHS intended to promote social and emotional competence, and prevent or reduce behaviour problems in children.
• PATHS develops and integrates essential skills in emotional literacy, behavioural self-control and problem solving.
What is PATHS?
An increased emotion vocabularies, more accurate identification of facial expression and of situation that have an emotional impact, more success in social situations with peers, increased social interaction and improved emotion regulation (Domitrovich, Cortes and Greenberg, 2007)
Greater co-operation, empathy and self control (Curtis and Norgate, 2007)
Increased understanding of emotions, self control, social competence and behaviour problems (Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 2010; Greenberg, Kusche, Cook and
Quamma, 1995)
Research studies have found that PAThS children have…
The importance of children’s early Social, Emotional and Behavioural Development for later social skills, emotional knowledge, conduct, compliance, self-regulation, and academic success is well recognised
(DCSF, 2008; NICE, 2012, cited in Hughes and Cline, 2015).
Lack of social and emotional learning is related to poor social adjustment and mental health problems
(Cassidy et al. 1992; Garner, Jones and Miner, 1994; Schultz, Izard and
Ackerman, 2000; Schultz et al., 2001; Zahn-Waxler, et al., 1990)
Emotional competence is closely linked to social competence, academic achievement, language and cognition, physiological development and physical health as well as behavioural adjustment
(Havighurst et al. 2012)
The Importance of Social and Emotional Development
“Children who experience psychosocial stressors such as poverty, domestic violence, parental substance abuse and physical and social disorder are at greatest risk for social and behavioural
problems”(McFarlane et al. 2010)
Many research studies have shown that PATHS has markedly beneficial effects for those identified as ‘at risk’ pre-intervention with a study by Humphrey et al., (2016) finding that PATHs led to, ‘statistically significant increases in pro-social behaviour of ‘at risk’ children.
Supporting Vulnerable Children
1. Increased self-control
2. Increased ability to get along with others by improving friendship skills.
3. Enhanced self-esteem, self confidence and the ability to give and receive compliments.
4. Increased understanding and communication of the vocabulary of emotions.
5. Recognition and understanding of how one’s behaviour affects others.
6. Increased understanding and use of logical reasoning and problem-solving vocabulary.
7. Improved knowledge of, and skill in the steps of social problem solving.
Aims of PATHS
• PATHS uses the ABCD (Affective-Behavioural-Cognitive-Developmental) Model of Development. It focuses on the promotion of optimal development growth for each child.
Theories behind PATHS
Affective 1. Ability to understand your emotions.2. Ability to control your emotions.
Behavioural 3. Ability to control your behaviours.4. Appropriate behavioural skills.
Cognitive 5. Analytic/Logical reasoning skills.6. Independent Thinking. (Decision making, responsibility for solving own problems)
Developmental 7. Positive self-esteem.8. Healthy personality development.
Paths links to Curriculum for Excellence – Health and Wellbeing and Literacy;
“I am aware and able to express my feelings and am
developing the ability to talk about them”
“I know that we all experience a variety of thoughts and
emotions and I am learning way of managing them.”
PATHS also links to Glasgow City Council’s Promoting Positive Behaviour Policy and Applying Nurture as a Whole School Approach
Where does PATHS fit in?
Closing the Attainment Gap in Scottish Education (Sosu & Ellis, 2014) recommends; ‘carefully implemented nurture groups and programmes to increase social, emotional and behavioural competencies’ to close the attainment gap for the poorest children.
In order for programmes such as PAThs to have the greatest impact it is important for staff understand how it links with other policies and initiatives in Glasgow. These include; Building the Ambition, Five to Thrive, ACEs, Attachment and Attunement.
Links to Policy
19 Lessons
• Positive classroom climate, circle rules
• Basic feelings: happy, sad, angry, scared, calm
• Comfortable or uncomfortable feelings
• All feelings are ok, all behaviour is not ok
• Friendship- sharing and caring
• Compliments, PAThS kid of the day/ Twiggles helper
• Self control- Turtle technique
PATHS Volume 1
24 lessons
Sharing, Caring, Friendship
Problem solving- ok/not ok behaviours
Feelings- excited, tired, frustrated, proud, love, worried, disappointed, jealous, furious, guilty, generous
PATHS Volume 2
Key Features of the programmeKey Features of the
pre-school programme
• Happy• Sad• Angry• Frightened• Calm
Comfortable/ Uncomfortable
Emotions
PATHS has four main characters;
• Twiggle the Turtle
• Henrietta the Hedgehog
• Daphne the Duck
• Duke the Dog.
PATHS Characters
• PATHS is designed to build children’s self-esteem and encourage children to support and respect others.
• Children learn the meaning of ‘compliment’ as ‘a nice thing we say to someone about him or her. It is a way we let someone know what we like about him or her.
• Parents will receive ‘Handouts’ to help teach children about compliments at home.
Compliments
• Each week Twiggle chooses a helper.
• All children will have a turn of being Twiggles helper and will get compliments from the other children.
• The sheet with the compliments from the others gets sent home. Parents can add their compliments. A copy can be kept for display and for the children's profile folders.
• The compliments sheet can be done at a separate time if possible as this can make the Paths lesson last for too long. (It can be incorporated into snack or together time.)
• Task-Discuss how this might be organised in your setting
Twiggles Helper
• One of the most important aspects related to teaching children about emotions involves helping children connect what they have learned about feelings to emotions they are actually experiencing.
• In order to support this process, emotion sharing sessions have been placed at the end of Units 2,3,4,7 and 8.
• Each emotion-sharing session involves setting aside a period of time to give children the opportunity to express themselves regarding their own emotional experiences.
Emotion Sharing Sessions
How to do ‘turtle’
• Doing ‘turtle’ means using the turtle technique.
• It teaches children how to calm down. When children are calm, it is easier for him or her to understand how he or she feels and to think about the choices he or she has before acting.
Parents powerpoint at the start of the year
Regular handouts from the pack
Termly paths newsletter
PAThS notice board
Compliments tree
Feelings travelling bear (Elmcroft Nursery School)
Taking photos of the parents showing different feelings – used for a variety of purposes
Getting Parents on board..
New Coaching Model
2016-2019
Recruitment & selection
Pre-service &
In-service Training
Consultation & Coaching
Evaluations and measuring
impact
Holistic Support systems
Importance of Effective Implementation:
This document is adapted from the EPIS Center (POST)-Elementary PATHS Student Survey (2012) and the PATHS Evaluation Kit Student Evaluation Part II by Carol A. Kusche, Ph. D, & Mark T. Greenberg, PhD. Published by Channing Bete Company, Inc.
Practitioner preparedness, enthusiasm and the manner in which they engage children in PAThS is strongly associated with children’s attainment
Involvement of management team is a critical factor affecting implementation. Protecting time for preparation, implementation and evaluation is key to embedding PAThS In the centre.
What makes a difference?
Challenges for centres
Preparation
Embedding Paths language and ethos
Large staff teams
Making Paths a priority. Readiness of practitioners to engage is vital!
Parental involvement
Transitions – continuation of self regulation skills into P1
Holistic Support
Network groups
Glow group