Author: adminprow

ProW is an Erasmus+ funded project implemented by 11 organizations in Cyprus, Greece, Romania, and Portugal. It aims to utilise Positive Psychology (PERMA model) and Positive Behavior Support in order to introduce evidence-based policies and practices in early childhood education. These practices are firstly expected to enhance the teaching profession in early childhood education by improving teachers’ well-being and careers, and also to build an inclusive positive-oriented school culture in which all children are valued and respected.

At the current phase of the project in Cyprus, the selection process has been successfully completed, by recruiting 20 public nursery and pre-primary schools that will participate to the programme during the next two years. Also, by following Positive Psychology (PERMA) and School Wide Positive Behavioral Support (SWPBS) related strategies tailored to the early childhood education, a dedicated team of experienced external coaches has been trained to deliver training and ongoing support to the teachers that take part to the project.

Due to the emerged challenges caused by the pandemic, such as the negative effects on children’s socio-behavioural skills, the limited social interaction, as well as the need to manage these effects at pre-schools on behalf of the teachers, ProW project is expected to be particularly useful. Wellbeing, job satisfaction and self-efficacy are key concepts studied and promoted within the project, which make the project approach even more innovative. ProW project consists a unique opportunity for pre-schools in Cyprus to experiment and implement evidence-based practices on these concepts.

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ProW research team had the pleasure and honour to host a constructive online meeting with a pioneer in the field of Positive Behavior Support, Dr. Tim Lewis from the University of Missouri, USA. Tim Lewis is an expert in the domain of Positive Behavior Support (PBS), with solid experience of more than 15 years in applied research. He has made substantial contributions to the development of the existing literature. His specialty areas also include social skill instruction and functional assessment.

During the online meeting Dr. Tim Lewis talked about the importance of Promoting Teachers Wellbeing through Positive Behavior Support in Early Childhood Education (ProW) by utilizing Positive Psychology and School Wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS). Positive Behavior Support in early childhood education is based on evidence-based policies and practices that aim to enhance the teaching profession and elevate teachers’ careers and capacities in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings.

The team discussed about the project which is currently implemented in collaboration with 11 organizations in Cyprus, Greece, Romania, and Portugal. Dr. Lewis shared his views about the importance of teachers’ and students’ perceptions alignment regarding the behavioral problems in schools. Additionally, he gave his input and suggestions regarding the significance of the framework’s application at schools. Our research team and coaches raised several inquiries to the professor regarding the best practices and the exploration of datasets and he addressed them by providing valuable real life examples, illustrations and practical suggestions.

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It was a great honour for our team (CARDET and Institute for Development) to participate in the Annual Conference of the International School Psychology Association (13-16 July 2021).  ISPA is a Non-Governmental Organization officially affiliated to UNESCO and the largest global school psychology association with thousands of members from around the world (https://www.ispaweb.org/). This year’s event was hosted in Cyprus and we had the opportunity to present our work from various initiatives and research projects that relate to our ProW policy experiment. Our presentations included the following papers:

1. The design and implementation of a program to enhance teachers’ wellbeing
   Vicky Charalambous, Anastassios Stalikas, Charalambos Vrasidas
2. Resilient preschools: Building early childhood teachers’ capacity for Positive Education
   Vicky Charalambous, Georgia Karaoli, Panayiotis Kosmas, Charalambos Vrasidas, Maria Eracleous, Pavlina Hadjitheodoulou Loizidou, Elena Papamichael, Christiana Stavrou
3. Implementing school-wide positive behavior support with fidelity Eliza Theofanous, Charalambos Vrasidas, Militsa Nikiforou, Vicky Charalambous
4. Systemic change and implementation science: Challenges and possibilities of SWPBS
   Charalambos Vrasidas, Vicky Charalambous, Eliza Theofanous, Elena Papamichael, Pavlina Hadjitheodoulou Loizidou

Our work aims to support evidence-based policy making. We presented research that supports policy development for education, teachers and learners’ well-being, as well as school improvement. These presentations put us on the map of global research and emphasize the important work we do to improve the quality of education in Cyprus and Europe.