PREFACE
With the development of the Federal Innovative Projects, the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families began an initiative to enhance the quality of services to Head Start. Comparable to the research and development efforts of private corporations, this initiative provided the funding necessary for experimentation in how to improve the delivery of Head Start services.
Under the Innovative Program, two million dollars were set aside to fund demonstration projects for fiscal years 1985-87. Head Start grantees from all parts of the country submitted proposals to address their priority areas.
The mental health component of Head Start became one such priority area because few practical day-to-day resources were available to Head Start programs to augment their mental health components.
In the spring of 1985, the mental health curriculum project staff approached the Executive Director of Action Opportunities, Inc. with the idea of submitting an application to address the pressing need for mental health resources in the preschool classroom. As a result, a proposal to develop a mental health curriculum was written, submitted, and subsequently funded by the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families. In September 1985, Action Opportunities began work on the curriculum. This project, and other innovative projects, has underscored the commitment of Head Start to develop and test products and ideas which enhance Head Start's delivery of comprehensive services. Contacts made throughout the country since the beginning of the project confirmed that there was a growing need to highlight mental health in the preschool classroom.
AS I AM is the result of a two-year process. During the first year the conceptual framework was built based on ideas of prominent researchers, theorists, and practicing early childhood professionals. The researchers and theorists provided the theoretical material that shaped the design of the curriculum. Comments from early childhood professionals with extensive classroom experience emphasized the value of including practical guidance to teachers. By September 1986, a first draft was completed.
Work then began to refine the curriculum. Staff focused on blending the theoretical with the practical to arrive at a curriculum that reflected the best of theory and practice. In the fall of 1986 field testing began. Teachers and parents from four Head Start Centers in Maine and one in New Jersey used it as a resource in their day-to-day work with children. Their practical application and suggestions, became an integral part of AS I AM and provided many improvements.
Central to the task of improving the curriculum was the creation of the Mental Health Curriculum Project Review Committee. Composed of mental health and early childhood specialists, the committee brought life to AS I AM. Committee members offered a strong mental health and child development focus and helped integrate the conceptual and practical. New ideas, fresh perspectives, and changes in the text and format resulted. A great deal was learned by the project staff of AOI during the two-year development of AS I AM. Most importantly, project staff members realized mental health does not exist in a vacuum. Every activity, every interaction in a preschool classroom has an impact on the emotional development of children. Preventive mental health is providing children with opportunities to better understand and accept themselves and their own emotions; it is encouraging adults to open doors to children and helping children open doors to each other; it is supporting children and facilitating all they do. We feel this curriculum offers some new ideas and approaches to building mental health into early childhood programs. We hope you will share our enthusiasm for AS I AM and accept Action Opportunities' invitation to offer your suggestions for further improvements.Ingrid Chalufour, Director, Mental Health Curriculum Project
Catherine Bell, Writer-Editor
Jane Weil, Writer,
Amanda Dyer, Writer
Barbara Peppey, Contributor
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