Promoting Healthy Relationships
Children are not born with resilience. It is the result of the interaction of biological systems and protective factors in the social environment.
The active ingredients in building resilience are positive relationships with parents, teachers, caregivers, and other adults in the community. It is vital that adults have the core capabilities - executive functioning and self-regulation skills - needed to promote resilience through safe, nurturing relationships.
Our Childcare and Community Social-Emotional Wellness (CCSEW) Program uses a multilayered approach with prevention, early intervention, and mental health services for children, their teachers and adult caregivers, and families. As our flagship program, CCSEW has won many awards, including the prestigious Florida Blue Foundation Sapphire Award for advancing health equity.
The Magic of CCSEW
Program Model
Promotion of trauma-informed strategies throughout the childcare center, school, and community, including:
- Multimedia ACEs and Trauma-Informed Care awareness;
- PACEs (Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences), toxic stress, and trauma education;
- Parent, teacher, and caregiver workshops, role modeling, and mental health consultation;
- Free, online access to A Way of Being with Children workshops and curriculum;
- Classroom-based screening and observations, support, and groups;
- Classroom-based social-emotional wellness curriculum, including mindfulness activities, play, and books that promote expression of feelings and self-regulation;
- Information and resources for schools and communities on PACEs, through resources and our toolkit; and
- Leadership and community-wide training, advocacy, and awareness efforts through our Fighting ACEs Initiative.
Center for Child Counseling's A Way of Being With Children: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Building Resilience provides the foundation for our approach with parents, teachers, and other adult caregivers.
Targeted, early intervention and support for children and families identified through screening and observation, including:
- Small Group Play Therapy, using Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT), an evidenced-based model.
- Targeted parent, caregiver, and teacher workshops.
- Individualized classroom support, crisis intervention, and mental health consultation to address specific behaviors and concerns.
- SNAP ® (Stop Now and Plan), an evidence-based cognitive-behavioral model for teaching children struggling with behavioral issues, and their caregivers, effective emotional regulation, self-control, and problem-solving skills.
- Continual identification of needs, with triage, and referral.
- Online and on-site A Way of Being with Children workshops, downloadable and printed tip sheets, videos, and resources to promote positive adult-child relationships.
Our work is based on decades of research; working in partnership with the families, schools, and communities we serve, and interacting with children in their most natural state of being - when they are at play. We often say, "we don't have to wait for a child to fall apart emotionally before we do something." Early intervention is at the core of our approach, with hands-on strategies and learning, based in childcare centers, schools, and aftercare programs where children spend most of their time.
Support and Evidence-Based Mental Health and Trauma Treatment for Children, Parents, Caregivers, and Families, including:
- School-Based Individual, Group, and Family Therapy
- Office, Community, and/or Home-Based Individual and Family Therapy
- Appropriate Referrals and Linkage for Physical, Speech, Occupational and Other Developmental Concerns and Basic Needs.
Our ABC-IT Approach
ABC-IT is our comprehensive, integrated therapy (IT) approach to the major domains of childhood functioning:
- Affect (feelings),
- Behavior (doing), and
- Cognition (thinking).
ABC-IT is a therapy model which integrates Child-Centered Play Therapy with age-appropriate Cognitive skills for modifying their beliefs, identifying and correcting distorted thinking while learning to relate to others in different ways, and Behavioral Therapy, in which undesirable behaviors are replaced with more desirable ones through positive or negative reinforcement.
Evidence-Based Treatment Models
Depending on presenting issues and needs, our therapists have training and supervision in an array of evidence-based treatment models, including Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), Filial Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).
Building Caregiver and Community Capacity
The science of prevention shows that we don’t have to wait for a child to fall apart emotionally before we do something, so building the capacity of caregivers and our entire community is essential.
Using a public health approach as the foundation of our model, CCSEW combines the research on brain development, mental health and trauma; putting the science into practice. The program is embedded within childcare centers and schools throughout Palm Beach County, focusing on prevention and early identification of mental health and behavioral concerns for children experiencing adverse childhood experiences, chronic stress, loss, and trauma.
A Way of Being with Children
Trauma-Informed Toolkit
The foundation for the CCSEW Program model is in our manual and curriculum: A Way of Being with Children: A Trauma Informed Approach to Building Resilience.
A Way of Being was first published over sixteen years ago and is based on research, experience, and practice within childcare centers and schools in Palm Beach County. The 86-page, printed manual was last updated in 2021 and the curriculum was expanded to include online learning for adults who work or live with children, focusing on understand children's emotions and behaviors through a trauma-informed lens.
Online and live workshops, mental health consultation, and the toolkit help shift practice in the classroom and home, with effective strategies to promote children's social-emotional wellbeing and resilience.
CCSEW in Action
Featured by Education Week, July 2022 at The Fuller Center. We partner with the center in Boca Raton to provide on-site services and support.