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begin to ECSEL 

Research and Evidence based Emotional, Cognitive and Social Early Learning Training Program

 
"We must remember that it is far easier to prevent than repair."
~ Dr. Donna Housman, Founder and CEO

The begin to ECSEL Program

Housman Institute's flagship evidence-based begin to ECSEL training program reaches children within the earliest years when their brains are most malleable. Research shows that during this critical window of opportunity, consistent repetition of high-quality learning experiences can strengthen optimum brain development in young children.

Children are able to learn the positive ways of managing and dealing with emotions from the guidance of responsive, attuned caregivers. This provides them with the critical knowledge, understanding, and skills to carry with them throughout their lives.

"Our research findings provide scientific evidence that the use of the begin to ECSEL program with young children results in significant growth in emotional competencies, self-regulation, empathy, and other prosocial behaviors critical for children’s lifelong learning, mental health, well-being, and success.”

~ Dr. Donna Housman, Founder and CEO

Our research-informed and evidence-based begin to ECSEL 10 Point Difference

1. Starting From Birth

1. Starting From Birth

Begin teaching emotional competence to infants from their earliest days.

 

2. Heat Of The Moment Experiences

2. Heat Of The Moment Experiences

Use current emotional situations as an opportunity to teach and learn more appropriate emotion regulation strategies.

3. Comprehensive Professional Training

3. Comprehensive Professional Training

The training and ongoing professional advancement of key socializers, like educators, is crucial to teaching children critical skills.

4. Fundamental Mentor & Coaching Model

4. Fundamental Mentor & Coaching Model

In order to ensure successful understanding and implementation, it is vital that educators have the help and guidance they need at every step. The training program offers a strong system of reflective practice and support through mentoring and coaching.

5. Supporting Educators Emotional Well-being

5. Supporting Educators' Emotional Well-being

Before educators and caregivers can help children successfully deal with their emotions, they must first be able to understand and manage their own emotions, stress, and anxiety.

6. Seamless Integration

6. Seamless Integration

Begin to ECSEL is designed to be woven into any existing programming or curriculum throughout the day, every day.

 

7. Training + Tools = Results

7. Training + Tools = Results

Proprietary begin to ECSEL® developmentally appropriate tools and characters provide children with the skills to identify and label their emotions, understand cause and effect relationships between emotions and behavior, and resolve interpersonal conflicts.

8. Significant Research Outcomes

8. Significant Research Outcomes

Our research has shown children who experience the begin to ECSEL program significantly outperform their peers nationally in key measures of emotional competence, self-regulation, empathy, and executive functions.

9. Parent & Family Engagement

9. Parent & Family Engagement

The begin to ECSEL strategies extend to the home, guiding parents in the critical understanding of their own emotional responses, underscoring the importance of modeling appropriate behavior, and enhancing their relationships.

10. Comprehensive Standards Alignment

10. Comprehensive Standards Alignment

While begin to ECSEL aligns with CASEL, NAEYC, Head Start, and State Standards, offering PDPs and CEUs to educators who complete the training, our approach goes above and beyond traditional SEL standards with our ECSEL standards.

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Comprehensive Teacher Training

Comprehensive Teacher Training

Our evidence-based program is centered on innovative synchronous and asynchronous educator and mentor training that informs and guides teachers in the cornerstones of the begin to ECSEL program, with the guidance of trusted mentors. Our comprehensive training provides teachers with heat-of-the-moment strategies and tools for identifying emotions, managing feelings, and negotiating peaceful problem resolution.

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Emotions Board

Begin to ECSEL Tools

A key component to the successful implementation of the begin to ECSEL program is the use of our proprietary developmentally appropriate tools to be used in the classroom. The program’s formative assessment supports and guides students’ recognition, understanding, and management of their emotions and those of others throughout the day.

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Mentor Program

Mentor Program

At Housman Institute, we know that the success of any new initiative requires support and guidance, which is why the mentoring relationship is a key component of begin to ECSEL. We train select staff as mentors to ensure that the whole school community is supported in the program, able to learn, thrive, and grow together.

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Aligning Begin To ECSEL with Standards

Aligning begin to ECSEL with Standards

Begin to ECSEL not only transforms a school environment but enhances the curriculum. The program can be seamlessly woven throughout existing or new curriculum and programming to ensure emotional intelligence is incorporated continually throughout the day. Begin to ECSEL is aligned with CASEL, NAYCE, Head Start, and State Standards.

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School To home Connection

School to Home Connection

Children do not learn and grow only at school. Parents and families are their first teachers. We have developed tools to support family engagement and understanding of the begin to ECSEL program with important newsletters, webinars, and at-home tips and activities to ensure the experience continues beyond the school day. We know that parents, siblings, and extended family can also benefit from the important skills we teach. In this important way, the welfare of the school’s larger community thrives from being a part of the begin to ECSEL process.

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Our Partner

ELLIS LOGO

Housman Institute is a Proud Partner with Ellis Early Learning to Place Emotional Intelligence at the Heart of Early Childhood Education.

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Support, Coaching and Guidance

Housman Institute's begin to ECSEL program provides comprehensive training with ongoing support and feedback to all staff to ensure implementation throughout the school community. We support educators through the training of mentors in Reflective Practice skills and techniques. Mentors receive consistent coaching from begin to ECSEL experts. Children are guided through proprietary begin to ECSEL tools and materials that enhance the teacher’s scaffolding and strengthens their students’ skills in the development of their emotional, cognitive and social early learning.

A Revolution in Early Childhood Education

Comprehensive preschool SEL programs that are intentionally and thoroughly integrated throughout all classrooms, and applied throughout everyday, are rare. Programs that begin with birth are almost non-existent. Begin to ECSEL is revolutionizing not only how early childhood educators implement SEL but also how they are trained to promote the building blocks of emotional intelligence.

Impacting the Whole School Community

While many schools have ways of measuring implementation, success and student outcomes over time for learning purposes, begin to ECSEL takes a ‘whole school’ approach that integrates learning and practices throughout the entire school day, seamlessly integrating into any existing curriculum or programming. As studies show that the ‘whole school’ approach is essential for sustained impact and that 'hit and run' approaches rarely succeed, begin to ECSEL reaches into every corner of a school community, fundamentally impacting both students and staff.

I believe that the begin to ECSEL program has provided my daughter with the tools of emotional intelligence for her to succeed….the key thing is the fact that she can identify and understand and label emotions not only of her own but of others around her and to understand how to deal with those emotions and regulate them in situations that may not be so easy. If she is learning that at a young age of four years old, then I believe she has started on the right path."

        ~ begin to ECSEL Parent

What Parents Are Saying About begin to ECSEL

Classrooms are social places, where children learn not only academics, but also about themselves and one another. Classrooms are truly our world in microcosm as children go up and down the emotional rollercoaster of the day. Our program offers the mental rubric and physical guardrails teachers need to help children develop a secure and positive sense of self as they navigate each day, helping them to identify and manage their own feelings and those of others along the way. We help teachers provide a safe and secure envelope for kids to experience and express their big emotions in healthy ways in the heat of the moment—and we help teachers to strengthen their own emotional health and well-being, to ensure they are most effective with the children they teach."

        ~ Dr. Donna Housman, Founder and CEO