Cascading a Culture of Well-Being: A synthesized practice of leadership coaching, well-being training, and experiential curriculum for early education — ASN Events
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Cascading a Culture of Well-Being: A synthesized practice of leadership coaching, well-being training, and experiential curriculum for early education (#77)

Megan Gilmore 1 , Danielle Svantner 2 , Erica Eyer 1
  1. Lark's Song Inc, Marion, IN, United States
  2. Westminster Preschools, Marion, IN, United States

Background

Lark's Song Inc an educational non-profit focused on well-being education, certified coach training and culture care partnered with Westminster Preschools starting in fall of 2020 to develop a scaleable and replicable model of cascading a well-being culture through a combination of leadership coaching, well-being trainings, and curriculum development for early education.  

Aims

Our aim was to develop a relevant, reliable, and agile well-being and life purpose literacy program for early education (1-5 year olds) that increased the well-being of school leaders, staff, and students that could also be replicated to new and unique learning environments. The programming was based on predominantly on the development psychology theories of Erikson and Kohlberg, David Kolb's theory of experiential learning, the life purpose discovery model developed by Dr. Bill Millard, the well-being theory developed by Dr. Martin Seligman, and the practice of coaching psychology taught at Lark's Song Inc.

Method

For the first year cascading a culture of well-being included, the team collaborating through monthly executive leadership and team coaching sessions, staff-wide well-being trainings, developing a well-being curriculum for the students, and introducing the parents/guardians to well-being concepts through monthly newsletters. In the second year, we began with an Appreciative Inquiry summit for the staff to direct their implementation of the pilot well-being program for the following year, presented quarterly well-being trainings for staff, continued monthly leadership coaching sessions, and adapted the curriculum as needed based on feedback from the teachers.

Results

Westminster Preschools has grown from one location to three, with a growing leadership and teaching staff, decreased negative behaviors in classrooms, increased parent/teacher collaboration, and overall increased staff well-being. Three additional schools outside the Westminster organization are now requesting to implement this program.

Conclusion

The impact of this approach has been overwhelmingly positive and generative. We are still measuring the impact of the initiatives on the well-being of the young students and will have those results by June 2023.

  1. Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.
  2. Millard, B. (2014). Development of a Sense of Life Calling Across a Lifetime. Manuscript in preparation.
  3. Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Free Press.
  4. Millard, B. (2022). Life Purpose: In Search of Meaning, Direction, and Hope. Apple Books. ISBN: 978-0-9965934-1-0
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