Abstract
Head Start is the nation's largest federally sponsored early childhood program, developed to serve at-risk, vulnerable young children by promoting school readiness. There are many curricula now developed to address social-emotional competence that can be used by SETA Head Start. However, these materials are not typically disseminated to Head Start staff. Further, these materials are not specifically geared toward SETA Head Start students and families. Thus, the purpose of this project was to develop and present evidence-based materials to SETA Head Start teachers that will help them support and promote social/emotional development for preschoolers in their care. To address this issue, a workshop was created based on research in social and emotional development in young children. A needs assessment was distributed to all SETA Head Start teachers in the Sacramento area. The needs assessment included a survey of what teachers felt they needed more support with when working in their preschool classrooms. Based on the responses from the returned needs assessments, a review of the scholarly literature, and review of evidence-based social-emotional curricula, a workshop was developed and implemented by the author. The workshop included content on emotion understanding, emotion regulation, and social competencies. These concepts were defined and strategies to support those key areas of development in the classroom were discussed. Resources were shared that can help teachers promote and support social and emotional development in their classroom. Evaluations were given to all teachers in attendance at the workshop to further develop this project. The results of this evaluation were discussed and suggestions for creating effective future workshops that benefit teachers, parents and families in SETA Head Start were formulated.