Promoting resilience contributes to children's well-being by enhancing their capacities to cope with change, frustration and stress, and reduces the risk of long-term negative outcomes such as depression and social-behavioural problems.

The Reaching IN...Reaching OUT Project (RIRO) takes research about resiliency promotion and adapts and evaluates the Penn Resilience Program (PRP) school-age model for use with children six years and younger. The PRP is based on many years of systematic research on depression prevention by Dr. Martin Seligman and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania. This program helps children learn to Reach IN to think more flexibly and accurately and to Reach OUT to others and opportunities.

Reaching IN...Reaching OUT consists of three stages. The first stage focused on enhancing the quality of children's experiences in childcare centres as a result of initial specialized training of early childhood educators by PRP staff, followed by active teacher involvement in a collaborative process to develop:

The PRP training assisted early childhood educators (ECEs) and other child-serving professionals to become more aware of their own beliefs about adversity and opportunity. ECEs in RIRO pilot centres practice evidence-based techniques that have been demonstrated to increase flexibility and accuracy in thinking, thus aiding development of more efficacy in analyzing and solving problems, and maintaining a sense of realistic optimism when faced with obstacles/adversity. The training addresses the ABC model (Ellis), common thinking errors, explanatory styles, and self-disputing techniques. It is designed to increase understanding, skill and use of these concepts by ECEs and other professionals in their day-to-day interactions with children. It also supports ECEs in the development of specific tools, learning activities, and strategies.

In order to implement this approach consistently, support the use of these techniques by childcare staff and evaluate the model, reflective journaling and weekly discussion in the pilot centres were used to extend and promote integration of the initial training during the first year. The PRP staff and members of the Child and Family Partnership consulted on an ongoing basis with project staff, researchers, and ECEs to adapt the PRP school age program to meet the developmental needs of children six and younger in childcare programs. The projects' first stage (model testing) was completed in March 2004.

The second stage of the project involved development of a specialized resiliency skills training program for professionals working with young children based on the promising findings from Stage 1. The development and evaluation of the skills training program and additional curriculum modules were completed in March 2006.

The third stage began in May 2006 and involves the development and evaluation of a "train-the-trainer" program and resiliency network for professionals. Please visit our Project Update section for current project activities and RIRO findings to date.OUR FUNDERS:

Our Funders:  RIRO would like to acknowledge the Social Development Partnerships Program of Social Development Canada for funding the initial research and development of RIRO's skills training program, curriculum modules and other resiliency resources for professionals (2002-2006).

We would also like to thank the Ontario Trillium Foundation for awarding a three-year project grant in May 2006 to pilot and implement RIRO's Train-the-Trainer Program and resiliency promotion network in the Early Learning and Child Care sector in Ontario, Canada.

For more information on the project, please download the PDF of the Stage 1 full project proposal. (1.2 MB)

(The above PDF file requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have this program, it can be downloaded free at the Adobe Website.)