Happy for a Reason

“It might seem crazy what I’m about to say,” Pharrell Williams sings from the speaker in a Tampa, Florida, conference room. Attendees dance along, but around the room some are very serious about their task. They’ve been challenged to count the number of times the word “happy” is used in the song. So why have these early childhood professionals from all over the nation been asked to do this in the “Rev It Up, Calm It Down” session they’re attending at the National Training Institute on Effective Practices: Addressing Challenging Behavior conference? They don’t know.

At least not until they stop and are asked to engage in a quieter, more serious task. People continue to talk and laugh and move about the room. The moderator points out that this is often what young children are asked to do in care settings, go from 0-60 and back again without any time to cool down in between.

The session is just one of many experiential sessions and workshops offered at the 3-day national conference in Tampa, Florida, focused on the Pyramid Model framework hosted by the National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations and the Pyramid Model Consortium. Tara Schroeder, a Nebraska Pyramid Model coach in her first year with Rooted in Relationships and a mental health practitioner, attended the “Rev It Up” session and said she appreciated the “hands-on of it.” “It offered different ways for us adults to find transitions to get kids to a calm mind space,” she added.

Schroeder is just one of a large Nebraska contingent who were able to attend this year’s institute thanks to funding from Rooted in Relationships. Christen Million, Assistant VP of Early Childhood Mental Health with Rooted and co-lead of Nebraska’s Pyramid State Leadership Team, explains that Nebraska was one of the first states to adopt the Pyramid Model and was chosen in 2007 to receive technical assistance from the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations of Early Learning.

As an early pilot of the Pyramid Model, Nebraska has always gone to the conference. This year, Million and 3 other state-level representatives from Rooted in Relationships were able to attend as well as 3 staff from the Munroe-Meyer Institute, the evaluation group for Rooted’s work. In addition, each Rooted in Relationships community sent at least 2 representatives, including coaches, coordinators, and providers. Million describes the conference as a place to stay up-to-date on practices, to go through training, to learn about new resources, and to network. She said, “this is one of those conferences where everybody comes back excited to do new things.”

Pamela Hansen, the Rooted Coordinator for Phelps County, said her county is in year one of Pyramid training so she wanted to attend the conference to bring back knowledge to her coaches. She said, for example, that one of the providers in her community has been working with hitting and biting behaviors, and Hansen found a solution kit that taught different ways of dealing with such behavior. She also said that transitions from space to space and activity to activity had been a focus of their recent work. At the Training Institute, she got “ideas for transitioning when Mom and Dad pick up and leave, because dropping off is sometimes an issue with children.”

She said one of the simplest and most effective tools she found was the songs she gathered at the conference. She, in fact, plans to meet with her coach-provider collaborations to offer a songs workshop. She notes that “music for most kids is very calming” and can be used for transitions to new activities, especially since it can be kid-led, which she says gets children’s attention more.

Shannon Marie is an early childhood professional who was picked to be a part of the Lincoln contingent to the conference. Her Wild Child Daycare focuses particularly on children who have behavioral issues, and she is always trying to find “the right techniques and tools to help them learn how to cope.” She utilizes nature as part of her routine, taking children to the zoo, to parks, to the pool, and even has stumps and logs set up in her yard for children to use in activities. She appreciated that techniques she learned at the conference were interactive and portable. She pointed out one where handprints were placed at varying heights on a wall so kids could work out energy by trying to jump and touch them. “That’s one I can do anywhere,” she said. “They can try to touch tree branches or whatever is available.”

One of things she was most appreciative of was the connections she made at the conference. She said, it was “nice to have that opportunity to get outside of our own bubble, especially in-home providers. We don’t have a huge network.” Marie met professionals from all over the U.S and has continued to be in contact with some from Texas, Arizona, Florida, and Kansas. As she put it, “I was able to meet some Nebraska people, but I was able to connect on a national level; it’s very knowledge-building.”

Hansen reiterated this point. She wanted to go to the conference, not only as a parent, but also  because she’s involved in so many community activities where connections around the state can be utilized. She said that at the Training Institute, “I met roughly 30 people from Nebraska that I probably never would have met beyond that.” She says that they can now collaborate, making what she calls, “a really big, huge knowledge circle.”

Regardless of occupation or level of training, all the attendees expressed what Schroeder so succinctly put into words, “I wish I could have spent 2 or 3 more days” because there was so much to do. She appreciated, for example, that they not only focused on calming behaviors but also considered children who needed activities to bring them out of their shells, like bouncing on yoga balls or feeding their worries (written on paper) to a “worry monster.” She said, “as a first-time coach, I really loved how they focused on how regulation is impacted by trauma and stress, and the kiddo’s ability to regulate is going to be different across the board.” Marie, who has finished her 3-year cycle of Pyramid training with Rooted in Relationships said the conference was a good ending that allowed her to expand on what she’d learned.

The hard work now begins of attendees implementing what they’ve learned in their communities. Hansen says they have scheduled an immediate stakeholder meeting in Holdrege to do community outreach with local libraries. Schroeder has already shared a “notebook full of notes” with her Director and plans to work with Wendy Gwennap, South Central Rooted in Relationships Coordinator, to share the information with other coaches. Marie is glad to come back with techniques that catch children before they “go up that mountain” (of increasing negative behavior). “Catching them in that moment that’s really what Pyramid is,” she says, adding, “being able to recognize that and have something right at the tips of your fingers” is so important.

Million says she’s pleased Rooted in Relationships was able to send so many to the conference this year, especially the providers “who usually wouldn’t get an opportunity to go to such a large conference out of state.” It’s a nice way to celebrate Rooted’s first ten years, and she’s happy to be thinking longterm and meeting with state leadership to discuss sustainability; she’s happy to come back with “tons of new resources”; she’s happy for a reason.

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