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The purpose of this paper is to present the Early Childhood-Socio-Emotional and Behavior Regulation Intervention Specialist (EC-SEBRIS) Certificate Program model integrating knowledge and practice. Coursework, videotaping, on-site coaching, and the reflective process facilitate the application of knowledge through the integration of theory and practice supporting young children and families. It is designed to help teachers and early childhood professionals to internalize the skills and competencies needed to address challenging behaviors in their classrooms or at homes so that they can meet the critical social-emotional and behavioral needs of children.

The paper will provide: research-based information to establish the need for such training programs; the rational to the conceptual framework of the EC-SEBRIS Certificate Program; the depiction of the wraparound training model, which uses triple coaching and mentoring methods: reflective supervision, videotaping, and on-site coaching for teachers; and a preliminary evaluation of the program, and future plans.

The EC-SEBRIS Certificate Program is at its early implementation stage. The author have graduated four cohorts, for a total of 113, early childhood professionals who have been hired to enhance the behavioral health services provided to young children and families. Overall, results suggest that the students’ knowledge base and confidence improved from time 1 to time 2 for each of the knowledge-based courses.

This is a conceptual paper.

The program bridges the early childhood education (ECE) and early childhood mental health fields, and recognizes the important role that early care and education professionals play in the socio-emotional development of young children. Coursework, videotaping, on-site coaching, and the reflective process facilitate the application of knowledge through the integration of theory and practice in the field supporting young children and families.

Challenging behaviors are one of the issues all early childhood educators have to deal within their classrooms. The model, as presented in the manuscript, can be implemented in other higher education institutions to enhance the skill sets of professionals who need to respond to this critical need and support healthy development of young children.

This is an original model emphasizing the importance of training early childhood educators to support emotion and behavior regulation in young children. The paper presents a cutting edge teaching model which integrates knowledge, practice, and reflective practice. This training model focuses on the ECE workforce as the front line to the provision of early childhood mental health support.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the development of a workplace development programme (WPDP) targeting small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) by focussing on the people who acted as brokers providing cross-boundary connections between its collaborating partners.

The material, from interviews with 32 individuals and 11 meetings, was analysed in a boundary-crossing framework, which provided tools to reveal how the roles of brokers at different levels (operative, strategic and national) of the WPDP affected its development.

The findings indicate that cross-boundary connections were made by persons who acted as brokers within and between different levels of the WPDP. The brokers who provided cross-boundary connections between different levels of the WPDP were found to play the most important role for the prompt development of the WPDP.

Apart from unique empirical material depicting the development of a collaborative venture between national and regional stakeholders of the manufacturing industry, the value of this study is the attention given to the people behind the policymaking of publicly funded national WPDPs, revealing the complex business of developing policy-driven competence development activities to employees in SMEs.

Although schools across the United States are becoming increasingly linguistically and culturally diverse, many teachers remain underprepared to work with students classified as English learners (ELs), especially at the secondary level. Acknowledging the importance of developing systems of support for teachers of ELs, this paper examines the district- and school-level factors shaping secondary teachers' access to EL-focused professional learning in one large urban school district.

To examine teachers' access to EL-focused professional learning, the authors draw on 49 in-depth interviews with district leaders and staff from nine secondary schools. Data analysis was guided by a structure, culture and agency theoretical framework.

Findings revealed that decreased structural support, in terms of both fiscal and human resources, constrained teachers' access to EL-related professional learning. Further, the district culture was characterized by limited understanding of ELs' backgrounds and assets. While some school leaders exercised agency to bolster EL-focused professional learning for teachers, such supports were rare.

Findings help to contextualize secondary teachers' feelings of unpreparedness to serve ELs, illuminating several factors that district and school leaders should attend to in order to bolster the development of professional capital for teachers of ELs at the secondary level.

While prior research outlines the importance of designing systems of support for EL-focused professional learning, this study highlights specific structural and cultural factors shaping such systems.

The purpose of this study was to examine the architecture of internship coaching models from five innovative principal preparation programs in the Southeastern region of the USA. The researchers used coaching architecture in this context to include the assignment of coaches to interns, dosages, and enactment of evaluation and confidentiality.

The researchers used a qualitative, collective case study research design that included semi-structured interviews of program directors and coaches from each of five programs, totaling 19 interviews that lasted from 30 min to an hour and 15 min each.

Commonalities among architectures of principal intern coaching designs included coaching assignment by geography, frequency and format of coaching sessions and length of the internship. All five programs recommend continuing coaching into initial years of administration. Points of distinction pertained to the utilization of external versus internal coaches, confidentiality and evaluation by coaches.

This study may inform coaching models for principal preparation programs within similar contexts. Because all five programs are grant-funded within one US state, generalizability and transferability cannot be assumed.

The authors provide design considerations for coaching programs, as well as policy considerations and directions for future research.

While coaching is increasingly used in leadership preparation programs, there is a paucity of research regarding the nature of coaching models, especially in terms of their architecture. The researchers examine, compare, and contrast coaching model architecture, raising important considerations for coaching designs.

A comprehensive intervention test platform, Valla Coach, including quantitative and qualitative methods to measure and improve work flows on site and promote coaching and collective learning has been developed jointly by researchers and practitioner. The study aims to describe the methodological underpinning of the platform, and discusses the preliminary results and implications.

Expansive Learning Theory grounded in a cultural–historical perspective underpins the conceptual realisation of the test platform. The viability of the platform was tested in four contextually different construction sites (and contractors), combining established and new measurement tools, qualitative intervention approaches and coaching according to the production challenges at hand.

Valla Coach created a space on site where researchers-as-coaches and operatives converged to co-construct (new) knowledge and learn together. The knowledge that emerged from the interactions gained legitimacy through its situatedness and practical value for the operatives.

Valla Coach provides opportunities for researchers and practitioners to probe the taken-for-granted. Moreover, a variety of methods and tools are tested in different contexts. The interventions prompt questioning of assumptions and make contradictions visible. Valla Coach remains work-in-progress and needs further evaluation and validation.

We contribute insights from negotiating socio-technical complexities, evaluating digital measurement tools and technologies and experiences of operatives. Tensions at the interface between the organisation and project are rendered visible.

A bottom–up approach that is a combination of practice-based tools and methods and of theories of learning and sustainable and continuous improvements where the operators are the main actors that enable productive activity.

Professional development (PD), including coaching and mentoring, for early childhood education and care providers has received increasing attention over the past decade. PD, particularly coaching/mentoring, has been shown to improve classroom quality. We recognize the importance of content and format of PD, but argue that dosage (overall amount) and density (spacing) are important aspects of PD that are worthy of careful consideration. We hypothesize that when PD conveys new information and complex new skills, a dense initial period is likely to produce better results than a less dense delivery. In this chapter, we review the program of research that has led us to a focus on both dosage and density of coaching. We conclude with the results from an ECEPD project in which we systematically varied the density of coaching while maintaining the same overall dosage. Classrooms all received 120h of in-classroom coaching and were randomly assigned to a dense “immersion” condition (20 full days of coaching spread over 5 weeks) or to a low density condition (one full day per week of coaching over 20 weeks). Classrooms in the immersion condition showed gains in quality, albeit modest, over the course of the school year, whereas those in the low-density condition either remained the same or decreased in quality over the school year.

Project REEL (Resources for Early Educator Learning) was a quasi-experimental, delayed-treatment professional development (PD) design to provide training, coaching, and materials to 220 early childhood educators (ECEs) in 85 diverse, high-needs settings (family, group, and center-based) across Tennessee. Its two primary goals were to (1) increase the frequency of research-based classroom learning experiences that promote language/literacy, numeracy, and social/emotional development among diverse early learners through training and coaching to ECEs and (2) improve the language/literacy, numeracy, and social/emotional readiness of children in low-income areas through research-based training of ECEs and parents. Even with differences in ECEs’ educational backgrounds and diverse settings, teachers in both treatment groups improved and maintained their knowledge and skills in response to the intervention. Preschool children in two cohorts showed significant improvements in most language and literacy measures over the course of an academic year, and improvements were often beyond that due to maturation (using age-controlled measures). Given the amount of improvement seen across a wide array of measures, there is substantial convergent evidence that the Project REEL PD approach was successful in promoting long-lasting improvements in the practices of ECEs in diverse settings and from diverse backgrounds. This chapter follows the development, implementation, and results of two literacy-related modules (“Print Awareness” and “Book Strategies”) for directors and teachers of three- and four-year-olds. These modules are representative of our training design, with its intensive focus on coaching in the diverse settings, and will provide the most beneficial model for other ECE professional developers to follow.

Mood and anxiety disorders affect 20–30 percent of school-age children, contributing to academic failure, substance abuse, and adult psychopathology, with immense social and economic impact. These disorders are treatable, but only a fraction of students in need have access to evidence-based treatment practices (EBPs). Access could be substantially increased if school professionals were trained to identify students at risk and deliver EBPs in the context of school-based support services. However, current training for school professionals is largely ineffective because it lacks follow-up supported practice, an essential element for producing lasting behavioral change. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this pilot feasibility study, the authors explored whether a coaching-based implementation strategy could be used to integrate common elements of evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) into schools. The strategy incorporated didactic training in CBT for school professionals followed by coaching from an expert during co-facilitation of CBT groups offered to students.

In total, 17 school professionals in nine high schools with significant cultural and socioe-conomic diversity participated, serving 105 students. School professionals were assessed for changes in confidence in CBT delivery, frequency of generalized use of CBT skills and attitudes about the utility of CBT for the school setting. Students were assessed for symptom improvement. The school professionals showed increased confidence in, utilization of, and attitudes toward CBT. Student participants showed significant reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms pre- to post-group.

These findings support the feasibility and potential impact of a coaching-based implementation strategy for school settings, as well as student symptom improvement associated with receipt of school-delivered CBT.

Effective inter-organisational relationships are key to engendering innovation and ensuring the successful delivery of infrastructure projects. Relationship-based contracts are thus widely used to stimulate best-for-project ideals and attenuate the otherwise adversarial relationship that often exists between clients and contractors. This study examines the effectiveness and limitations of a project facilitation model as coaching tool for developing conducive inter-organisational relationships for construction project delivery.

The study adopts a case-study approach using evidence from triangulated data sources of focus group workshops, semi-structured interviews and document analysis.

(1) The facilitation model enabled an environment for psychological safety to be developed, which engendered a platform for effective cooperation for problem-solving and achieving quasi best-for-project ideals. (2) The model provides the mechanism to develop team behaviours that support enhanced performance and create an environment less adversarial and more collaborative than traditional contracting.

The novelty of this research is that relationship-based principles have been utilised as part of a traditional design-bid-build contract with lump-sum payment arrangements.