Promoting Teacher Wellbeing for Children’s Socioemotional Development in Settings of Adversity

We propose adapting Semillas de Apego, a psychosocial program that targets caregiver mental health and socioemotional skills, for early childhood teachers, in partnership with Buen Comienzo (the ECD unit of the District Government of Medellín). The objective is to adapt and test a model that strengthens teachers’ mental health and emotion regulation and improves children’s socioemotional development in pre-primary services. Participants are early childhood teachers (mostly women) in pre-primary centers serving young children exposed to chronic violence and forced displacement. Semillas de Apego rests on two premises: young children’s socioemotional development depends on caregivers’ emotional availability and sensitive care; yet, adversity also affects caregivers’ mental health, constraining sensitive caregiving. The program has been tested in a pilot study, a small-scale randomized controlled trial, an at-scale pilot, and an ongoing at- scale RCT. In the small-scale RCT, eight months after program completion, intent-to-treat effects were 0.17 SD on caregiver mental health, 0.31 SD on the quality of child–caregiver interactions, and 0.10 and 0.23 SD on child mental health and development, respectively. We will now apply the same conceptual framework for teachers. They spend many hours each week with young children, often experience burnout, and share the adversities faced by the communities they serve. However, standard teacher training rarely provides structured mental health support or emotional regulation tools. We will co-design the teacher adaptation with Buen Comienzo; adapt content and pedagogy; develop facilitator training, supervision and monitoring models; and run a small implementation pilot to document feasibility, acceptability, take-up, and fidelity. Deliverables will include a finalized curriculum, training and supervision manuals, and cost estimates. By embedding mental health in both families and pre-primary services, we aim to ensure that children grow up in environments that protect their development and open opportunities for the future. Further, by positioning mental health as part of routine teacher training, within a model to be adopted and financed through public early childhood and education budgets, the project targets a credible path to susta inability.