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Educating for Wellbeing (EW)

place Mexico

Awareness, self-regulation & connection: Empowering educators and students to cultivate wellbeing.

In Mexico, 1 in 2 children lives in poverty and 60% are behind in school by grade six. Gaps in educational outcomes across socioeconomic status fuel cycles of inequality and violence. EW aims to break these cycles by fostering learning environments that act as protective barriers. EW trains educators to improve their own SEC and well-being, foster SEL in students and implement systemic change.

HundrED 2024
play_arrow

2018

Established

429K

Children

1

Countries
Target group
All
Updated
June 2023
AtentaMente’s curriculum is more sophisticated than any comparable efforts on the planet… it is amazingly comprehensive, well-constructed and goes far beyond anything similar that currently exists.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

Early childhood is a critical moment to cultivate children’s SEC, especially for those living in poverty and with delayed socio-emotional development. This hinges on educators’ own SEC and well-being; an adult who models and teaches these skills can promote a nurturing learning environment and the development of children’s SEC, which serve as protective factors for children now and in the future.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

EW, AtentaMente’s proprietary curriculum, consists of three components.

1) A rigorous professional development program that uses a blended learning approach - synchronous sessions, a self-paced online course and a mobile app - to train educators to understand and practice SEC in their lives and classrooms and improve their own well-being.

2) An SEL curriculum for students, which embeds both explicit instruction and the practice of targeted skills into daily activities.

3) Leadership training that builds local capacity to ensure culturally and contextually relevant SEL implementation that enacts long-term systemic change.

EW has proven effective in improving outcomes in both educators and students. Results from pilot studies show positive changes in teachers’ SEC, stress and burnout, as well as improved students’ socio-emotional outcomes. RCTs conducted by the World Bank and the Center for Healthy Minds will publish results estimating the impact of EW in the following months.

How has it been spreading?

Starting in 2018 with 1,000 school principals across seven states in Mexico, by 2022, EW had trained 16,508 educators, impacting an estimated 429,208 students across 11 states. It currently runs in 5 states, aiming for full coverage for early childhood educators.

EW has strengthened its capacity to scale, tripling instructors from 60 to 180 in four years and working with hybrid and all-virtual delivery in close collaboration with local Ministries of Education.

In the next 2-3 years, EW aims to reach 50,000+ pre-primary and lower elementary school educators across Mexico and establish a core group of 50-200 leader educators per state to ensure SEL systemic implementation and sustainability. Looking forward, we aim to expand SEC to the adult network supporting children ages 1 through 6.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

We’re always looking for partners to expand and fund our programs in Mexico and the world.

Interested in adapting EW to fit the needs of your specific context? Email our Director at daniela@atentamente.mx.

We look forward to working with you in supporting more educators to cultivate their wellbeing, promote nurturing learning environments for students and embed SEL within their education system.

Impact & scalability

Impact & Scalability

Educating for Wellbeing is an innovative SEL curriculum combined with teacher training and the empowerment of local leaders who advocate for systemic change in schools to include SEL as a core aspect for education.

HundrED Academy Reviews

This innovation targets the full child’s ecosystem to ensure cohesiveness. It is a comprehensive program that targets the full range of SEL competencies, using evidence-based explicit and targeted practices.

Educating for Wellbeing is an innovative SEL curriculum combined with teacher training and the empowerment of local leaders who advocate for systemic change in schools to include SEL as a core aspect for education.

- Academy member
Academy review results
High Impact
Low Scalability
High Impact
High Scalability
Low Impact
Low Scalability
Low Impact
High Scalability
Read more about our selection process

Media

WISE Awards Film: Educating for Wellbeing
EW submitted to a Randomized Control Trial in Sinaloa. 2,162 educators were part of a Randomized Control Trial in 421 public preschools in Sinaloa, indirectly benefiting more than 50,000 preschool children. Educators’ emotional regulation, pro-sociality, and self-efficacy, and students' pro-social behavior and emotional regulation improved significantly. These results will be published soon.
Empowering leaders across the country for systemic implementation of SEL. More than 570 principals, supervisors, teachers and staff trained by EW’s Leadership component will spearhead the expansion and sustainability of SEL and support EW implementation school to state-wide in the Yucatan Peninsula, Coahuila, and Nuevo Leon in the next three years. Qualitative research will monitor their work.
Expanding EW in all Nuevo León The Ministry of Nuevo Leon has a vision of state-wide SEL implementation via EW. Together we aim to train all educators in the state in 6 years (2021-27), adapting curricular content so that children and youth from Pre-K to K12 can develop their SEC. Through mixed public and private funding, EW has benefited 3,000 educators and their 90,000 students.
EW grows with children in the Yucatan EW expands ages to accompany Mayan-speaking students’ SEL development into grades K1 to K3. Extending our PD to primary teachers, we developed age-appropriate curricular adaptations, didactic materials, and bilingual Mayan/Spanish games that provide continuous support for SEL skill development while revitalizing language and culture.
Social-emotional Learning in Maya Adopted by Mayan teachers, SEL was turned into “Maya Socioemocional”: videos, activities, and stories that rescue the uses and traditions of the Mayan culture as tools to help teachers promote and re-signify the Mayan language while developing socioemotional skills in preschool students. Watch the video: https://youtu.be/BN7BdSQ3rV8=share
AtentaMente - Educating from Wellbeing in the Border Belt
Preschoolers in Maya communities are singing AtentaMente’s SEL curricula songs in their native language!
"My sense of purpose was hurt... but taking part in EW was like the breeze of fresh air I needed"
Empowering the Yucatan Peninsula to sustain and adapt EW to better serve the local communities.
Meet Aitana, future SEL instructor for the State of Sinaloa!
"If you sit still like a mountain and take three deep breaths, you won't be angry at me anymore"

Implementation steps

1. Explore

There are four ways you can learn more about and experience our program to figure out if it would be a good fit.

1. Schedule a meeting with the AtentaMente team to discuss how EW can support your specific needs. Contact Daniela, our Director at daniela@atentamente.mx.

2. Schedule a free trial session so that you can experience EW firsthand and get a sense of what to expect if EW were implemented in your context.

3. Download and use our free app. The AtentaMente app is freely accessible to everyone, whether they are taking part in EW, or are someone who is eager to explore their emotional world and start cultivating their own wellbeing.

FOR ANDROID. You can download the AtentaMente app through Google Play:

Download via Google Play

FOR APPLE. You can download the AtentaMente app through the App store:

Download via App Store

4. Explore a few sessions of the self-paced online component of the EW program. This will give you an idea of the teaching methods and kinds of materials EW provides to participants.

Use this link https://educar.atentamente.mx/login and this login information:

Email: estudiante@atentamente.org.mx

Password: Atentamente.2021

2. Assess

Once you decide that you want to work with us to implement EW in your area, the first step is assessing the needs of the local context.

The team at AtentaMente works with you to determine your needs by discussing topics such as what challenges the school communities are facing, what support do teachers and principals in your area need, what your short- and long-term goals are for your education system, among others.

Then, working together, we will find the way that EW can best support your needs and work within your context to achieve the desired results.

3. Select

Once the needs assessment is completed, together we will select the components of EW to be implemented in order to achieve the expected results in the planned time frame.

This could include:

  • Determining which of the resources and materials to use according to your unique needs

  • Designing a schedule for implementation

  • Identifying key local stakeholders to include from the onset and throughout implementation

  • Establishing the EW instructor and support teams

  • Deciding whether a research component will accompany program implementation

  • Any other strategies relevant to your context

4. Get ready

The team at AtentaMente will work closely with you to develop a strategy for implementation, such as determining the target population, designing a recruitment strategy to ensure participation, and how to communicate with educators and stakeholders about the program.

At this point, it is crucial to involve all relevant stakeholders in your context and establish a consensus for how they would like to be involved with the implementation going forward. This is the time for everyone that will be involved in the implementation to communicate their expectations, set their goals, and have clarity on their roles. AtentaMente will support you in preparing your teams to monitor these goals and progress along every step of the implementation process.

Are you interested in including a research component? If so, this is when we would determine what assessment measures to include in the research investigation.

5. Go!

The next step is to begin implementing the EW program. Ideally, local authorities, funding partners, EW directors, and all participants come together in the inaugural live session to kick-start the program.

Then, we continue implementing all activities of the EW components selected, be these synchronous sessions, online course, or booster sessions, according to the determined plan. Throughout the entire program, participants will receive continuous pedagogical and technical support 24/7 from specialized instructors and support teams at AtentaMente.

The key to EW's success is maintaining participants and stakeholders engaged and motivated. For this, EW comprises specific strategies such as weekly check-in meetings, support via Whatsapp messaging groups and email, periodic attendance records and reports to track engagement, among others. Additionally, we would ideally meet with local stakeholders once a month so that everyone can stay updated on the progress of the implementation and make decisions when appropriate.

We are committed to ensuring the most effective support and training for participants, which hinges on continuously improving the way we interact, share and learn throughout the program. We do this by enabling spaces to receive feedback directly from participants and stakeholders and then putting that feedback into action.

6. Evaluate

As we hit program milestones, as well as towards the end of the program, we assess participants’ experience with EW and measure key participant outcomes such as levels of stress and burnout, development of prosocial skills, and motivation and preparedness to implement SEL with students.

This allows us to effectively estimate the effects (and even impact) of EW on expected outcomes. When possible, we welcome opportunities to also measure the outcomes of EW on the students and the learning environment participants enable.

We also collect qualitative data (semi-structured interviews) from participants in order to hear about their experience with the program and if they noticed any differences in themselves or their work after completing it. This allows us to tell the “full story” on how EW is contributing towards participants and students’ wellbeing.

7. Wrap up

In this final step, together we will review everything we have achieved, identify key milestones, and reflect on the original goals that were set.

Then, we determine next steps for you based on the following criteria:

  • Do you want to scale EW to reach more participants?

  • Do you want to focus on empowering a leadership group that will build their capacity so that they can scale and sustain the program from the ground up?

  • Do you want to work together on creating a medium/long term plan for embedding SEL on your education system and sustaining it?

  • Would you like to expand your research goals?

  • Do you want to showcase this experience in other spaces?

  • Or all of the above?

Based on your answers to these questions, we will determine what needs to happen next and how we can best support you.

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