Educating for Wellbeing (EW)

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.