Growing Children’s Social and Emotional Skills: Using the TOGETHER Programme (Evolving Families)

Growing Children’s Social and Emotional Skills examines how parent–educator partnerships can be achieved to enhance the development of children’s social and emotional skills.

The book presents the TOGETHER programme, a training programme that emphasises the importance of the relationship between caregivers and teachers with the children in their care, as well as deepening the collaborative partnerships between teachers, educators and caregivers. Using a case study approach, the book explores the application of the TOGETHER programme across various home and early childhood education contexts through the unique voices of those involved.

The TOGETHER programme presented in this book is:

• Easy to implement and adaptable, requiring minimal training time for parents, teachers and educators

• Designed to emphasise the importance of relationships in developing children’s social and emotional skills

• Supported by photocopiable resources and a downloadable e-manual that can be used to implement the training

With the vision to empower caregivers to take an active role in building children’s social and emotional competence, this book is written in a way that will appeal to academic researchers and tertiary students, early childhood educators and other caregivers. It will assist in recognising children’s strengths and deepening collaborative partnerships between families, educators and other caregivers.

Joanna Grace Phillips is a registered early childhood teacher and PhD Candidate at Swinburne University of Technology. Joanna has extensive experience as an early childhood teacher, early intervention and behaviour specialist, and has taught for several years in the university setting. Joanna’s interests in research focus on early intervention, family-centred practices, positive behaviour supports, family-centred practices and contextually responsive approaches to both education and intervention. Joanna has been a contributor to chapters in three books published with Routledge: Early Childhood Education and Care in the 21st Century Vol I 2018, Vol II, 2019, Vol III, 2020.

Sivanes Phillipson is Dean International and Professor of Education at Swinburne University of Technology. She is the Routledge Editor for Evolving Families Series, a series that focuses on issues, challenges and empirical best practices surrounding evolving families that impact upon their survival, development and outcomes. Sivanes’ research interest and experience centres around family studies in particular parental engagement in early learning and care as the basis for children’s formal learning and whole wellbeing. The Australian Research Council Linkage funded research that Sivanes led has produced a resource website, www.numeracyathome.com that facilitates and enables parents and educators to engage in early mathematical learning. Sivanes has published widely especially in leading journals such as Journal of Child and Family Studies and Educational Psychology, with over 100 peer reviewed papers and book chapters. She has eight published books focusing on teacher education and parent engagement with the latest four books published with Routledge. The latest books are Early Childhood Education and Care in the 21st Century Vol I 2018, Vol II, 2019, Vol III, 2020, and with the newest being The Power of Expert Teaching: Lessons for Modern Education, 2020.

Gaye Tyler-Merrick is a Senior Lecturer at Nottingham Trent University where she leads the National Award for Special Educational Needs Co-Ordination. Gaye has worked in all sectors of education. She initially trained as kindergarten teacher and then specialized in special education. She worked as a Resource Teacher: Learning and Behaviour in primary and secondary schools before moving to tertiary education, first, as a lecturer in early childhood education and then in special education. Gaye initiated, developed and taught the Post Graduate Certificate in Positive Behaviour Support at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand before moving to the UK in 2017. Gaye’s teaching and research interests are in early intervention, behaviour screening, positive behaviour support/classroom management and developing family/teacher partnerships. Gaye lead the team which wrote the New Zealand based chapters for three books published with Routledge: Early Childhood Education and Care in the 21st Century Vol I 2018, Vol II, 2019, Vol III, 2020.