Well-Being First Professional Development

“Well-Being First” is an interdisciplinary professional development model that is designed to promote Head Start teachers’ health, resilience, and well-being as well as organizational well-being within early care and education programs.

Well-Being First is designed to support Head Start teachers’ individual and organizational well-being through:

• Three days of all-staff training based on the science of well-being.

• Facilitated time for teams to identify the sources of educators’ stress and create organizational action plans.

• Monthly support from our team to help turn participants’ action plans into reality.

• Four-hour leadership training for Head Start program leaders to encourage them to use trauma-sensitive approaches with staff.

Our goals are to help Head Start educators:

• Establish healthy behaviors that promote personal well-being

• Build positive and supportive relationships

• Reduce stress and mitigate the risk of burnout

• Engage in effective communication about individual- and organizational-level stressors

• Identify and implement strategies for managing stressors personally and collectively

• Collaborate to make organizational improvements

This project is supported by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the United States (U.S.) Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award (Grant #: 90YR0154) totaling $2,126,428 with 100 percent funded by ACF/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by ACF/HHS, or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit the ACF website, Administrative and National Policy Requirements.