Working Together – Conscious Discipline & E-DECA 2.0 Assessment and Planning System, With Strategies from Conscious Discipline For Infants, Toddlers, And Preschoolers!

The Devereux Center for Resilient Children (DCRC) has always placed a high value on the importance of collaboration.  One of our six underlying principles is to promote collaboration between the fields of education and mental health, but our commitment to collaboration goes well beyond bringing together professionals from different fields.  Two years ago DCRC and Conscious Discipline collaborated to build a system that would streamline the various resources programs use to build resilience and promote children’s social and emotional health.  The Conscious Discipline & e-DECA 2.0 Assessment and Planning system is now being used by programs across the country and the feedback from teachers and administrators has been very positive.

Staff using the system recently shared feedback about how this resource is supporting the resilience and social and emotional health of young children.  As we hoped, staff are using it in a variety of ways including:

• Teachers use the DECA results to select Conscious Discipline strategies to promote children’s Attachment/Relationships, Self-regulation, and Initiative.
• Teachers use the DECA results to select Conscious Discipline strategies to reduce behavioral concerns.
• Parents are encouraged to meet with staff and discuss the DECA results and Conscious Discipline strategies to support their understanding of the importance of social and emotional skills.
• Administrators are using the DECA aggregate reports to identify the protective factors where many children have “needs” and using that information to determine professional development topics.
• Programs are looking at the DECA data longitudinally to assess progress at the individual child level, within classrooms, and even program-wide.

Programs need resources that help them do the important work that they do as efficiently as possible.  If your program is using or is considering using the DECA and / or Conscious Discipline, please be sure to learn more about the Conscious Discipline & e-DECA2.0 Assessment and Planning System

If you would like to talk with staff already using this resource, DCRC would be happy to make an introduction. Please contact deca@devereux.org.