Massachusetts - Pyramid Model Consortium

PLEASE PARDON OUR MESS AS WE BUILD OUR NEW PYRAMID MODEL PAGE!

Our Vision
All Massachusetts Infant and Early Childhood Practitioners will have the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and supports necessary to nurture young children’s social-emotional development within their family, culture, and community.

Our Mission
The Massachusetts Pyramid Model State Leadership Team will help develop and sustain a statewide, collaborative professional development structure that utilizes the Pyramid’s conceptual framework, joined with other related promotion, prevention, and intervention efforts. Massachusetts Practitioners trained in the Pyramid Model will have the capacity to promote social and emotional competence, prevent emotional disruption, address challenging behavior, and understand the impact of nurturing relationships on children’s capacity to learn.

MA History

In 2009 Massachusetts became one of the first states to implement Pyramid Model practices. A State Leadership Team (SLT) was established with MA leaders from public and private organizations concerned with the social-emotional development of young children and their families.

The SLT has worked closely with the Pyramid Model Consortium to develop a comprehensive strategic plan for implementation of the Pyramid Model and complete the exploration/planning stage for each of the Pyramid Model key structures.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) are aligning their work to bring EC-PBS Pyramid Model strategies to programs across Massachusetts, creating linkages across district-based and community-based programs.

The community-wide approach is designed to create stronger networks for families, provide cohesive services for children, and support interconnected professional development for staff.

What is the State Leadership Team?
Our State Leadership Team includes representation across many different agencies, organizations, and disciplines active in the implementation of the Pyramid Model across the Commonwealth. This membership reflects a a high level of collaboration amongst those who serve families with young children in Massachusetts.

Department of Elementary & Secondary Education

The US Department of Education is implementing a revised accountability system under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). To support this new system, known as Results Driven Accountability (RDA), states are required to develop a State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP). In developing, implementing, and evaluating the SSIP, states have been asked to select a measurable outcome and deliver innovative, evidenced-based practices for students with disabilities to improve the measurable outcome. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) has selected improved outcomes for preschool children with IEPs as the State Identified Measureable Result (SiMR) and the Pyramid Model as the improvement strategy. Massachusetts selected this outcome and correlating strategy based on input from a variety of stakeholders, a thorough data analysis, and an examination of existing state infrastructure. The Pyramid Model is a tiered intervention framework that includes evidence-based practices for promoting the social, emotional, and behavioral development of young children. Using a train the trainer model, the Department is providing intensive support to 18 districts. In addition, related statewide initiatives are being bolstered to leverage existing infrastructure in order to promote expansion and sustainability. Beginning in FY2017, the department will begin the evaluation of the SSIP and make revisions based on data analysis. The Department will report these results annually to OSEP through FY2020.

The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care

The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) has participated in the dissemination of the Pyramid Model approach throughout the state. This includes Educator Provider Support grantees funded through EEC to offer a variety of professional development opportunities are offering CEU-bearing Pyramid Model trainings to community and public early care and education programs.

Early Intervention

The Massachusetts Early Intervention (EI) system is implementing a state-wide initiative to embed principles from the Parents Interacting with Infants (PIWI) approach to working with families during home visits. This initiative will focus on supporting all EI specialists to engage with parents by focusing on identifying the dyadic characteristics in each parent (or caregiver) – child relationship and utilizing triadic strategies to strengthen the dyadic relationship for each family. In addition, we are supporting EI specialists to purposely move from using most directive to least directive triadic strategies in their on-going work with families. In the initial phase, we are focused on the EI specialists’ home visits with a parent or caregiver and not child care settings.

Promoting Nurturing and Responsive Relationships in Massachusetts Homeless Shelter: Supporting Children’s Social and Emotional Wellbeing — A Pyramid Model Intervention

A collaboration between three state agencies—the Departments of Early Education and Care, Public Health, and Housing and Community Development, to support young children experiencing homelessness. The project, funded through the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Grant, provided training and coaching to shelter staff using the Pyramid Model of early childhood Positive Behavior Support in 2014-2015 across three regions of the state. The training provided them with a new mindset for working with families, as well as a new set of tools. As a result of this training, the staff reported increased confidence and skill in supporting parents to build their children’s social emotional competence.

New England Head Start Training and Technical Assistance, UMass Donahue Institute

Since 2003, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families has contracted with the Institute to provide services to Head Start and Early Head Start programs throughout New England.
UMass Donahue Institute’s Regional Head Start TTA Network worked with 3 Head Start grantees in their implementation of the Pyramid Model approach in their infant-toddler programs. They also sponsored two cohorts at Institutes on Systems for Social Emotional Wellness, which gave teams an opportunity to use the Pyramid Model as a framework for reviving program systems, policies and practices to improve their support of social emotional wellness for children, families, and staff.

Professional Development Resources

ePyramid Birth to 5 Course

ePyramid Infant-Toddler Course

ePyramid Preschool Course

Del nacimiento a los 5 años

ePyramid Reducing Implicit Bias

ePyramid Trauma-Informed Care

Family Child Care Resources

Pyramid Partners and Resources

New Resource to Support Behavioral Health!

Click on the image to

download as a PDF!

Pediatric Mental Health Care Access (PMHCA)

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) was awarded the Pediatric Mental Health Care Access (PMHCA) grant, a five-year grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The project will promote early childhood mental health (ECMH) integration into pediatric primary care by enhancing the ECMH capacity of the MA Child Psychiatry Access Project (MCPAP), centering family engagement and equity. DPH will partner with the MCPAP team at UMass Medical Center, the Department of Mental Health, MassHealth, and the Young Children’s Council to:

establish and train an Early Childhood MCPAP team, including a part time psychiatrist and full time ECMH clinician, to provide consultation to primary care practices;
provide training and case consultation using the ECHO model to enable primary care provider teams to support the behavioral health needs and wellness of children under 6 years old (including the evidence-based Pyramid Model and DC:0-5);
and provide enhanced ECMH tools and resources and linkages to the early childhood and family support system.

Continue to check back about different ways to connect to Pyramid Model through your Community.

Welcome to the Massachusetts Pyramid Model homepage for families resources! Here you will find many resources for understanding and supporting young children. Sometimes as parents or caretakers of young children, we can feel overwhelmed by not being able to understand their behavior. Children might express themselves through a temper tantrum, hyperactivity, sullenness, silliness, or withdrawal. All of these are demonstrations of communication, but for kids it can be hard to find the words! It is up to us, the adults, to support and develop positive relationships with children in order for all children to grow up into healthy adults.

On this page you will find resources for addressing challenging behavior as well as general resources on social emotional development of young children.

Massachusetts Statewide Family Engagement website – https://masfec.org/

Massachusetts Strengthening Partnerships – https://www.doe.mass.edu/sfs/family-engagement-framework.pdf

Positive Solutions for Families – Sessions 1-7 Download Here | Family Resource Guide- Download Here

National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations Family Engagement Resources – View Resources Here