Refer a Child

Pyramid Model

Facilitating Capacity Building

Nova Scotia Early Childhood Development Intervention Services (NSECDIS) facilitate early learning & child care program and early childhood educator capacity building through the delivery of:

  • program coaching and
  • practice based coaching

within early learning & child care and Pre-primary program settings, utilizing the Pyramid Model.

Promoting Healthy Social Emotional Development

What is the Pyramid Model?

The Pyramid Model is a conceptual framework of evidence-based practices for promoting young children’s healthy social and emotional development. The Pyramid Model program uses a coaching model to provide guidance to families, Early Childhood Educators, and other professionals.

The Tiers of the Pyramid Model

The Pyramid Model builds upon a tiered approach to providing universal supports to all children to promote wellness, targeted services to those who need more support, and intensive services to those who need them.

Effective Workforce

The foundation of the Pyramid Model is a trained, effective workforce. The foundation for all of the practices in the Pyramid Model are the systems and policies necessary to ensure a workforce able to adopt and sustain these evidence-based practices.

High Quality Supportive Environments Nurturing & Responsive Relationships

At the universal level we include the practices needed to ensure the promotion of the social development of all children.

  • High Quality Environments
    • Inclusive early care and education environments
    • Supportive home environments
  • Nurturing and Responsive Relationships
  • Essential to healthy social development

Includes relationships with children, families, and team members

Targeted Social and Emotional Supports

This tier supports prevention which represents practices that are targeted social emotional strategies to prevent problems. The prevention level includes the provision of targeted supports to children at risk of challenging behavior.

  • Targeted Social Emotional Supports
    • Explicit instruction and support
    • Self-regulation, expressing and understanding emotions, developing social relationships and problem-solving

Intensive Intervention

This tier supports intervention which is comprised of practices related to individualized intensive interventions. The tertiary level of the Pyramid Model describes the need to provide individualized and intensive interventions to the very small number of children with persistent challenges.

  • Individualized Intensive Interventions
    • Family-centered, comprehensive interventions
    • Assessment-based
    • Skill-building

Benefiting Children, Educators and Families

What are the benefits of the Pyramid Model?

Benefits for Children

  • Enhances their social and emotional skills which include their ability to:
  • Develop and maintain relationships
  • Identify and manage emotions
  • Use problem-solving skills
  • Follow directions
  • Share and take turns
  • Understand routines and transitions
  • Develop self-control and coping strategies

Benefits for Educators

  • Creates positive, supportive relationships with children
  • Provides coaching and support for learning and implementing new strategies
  • Provides training to support families
  • Provides resources to share with families

Benefits for Families

  • Creates positive, supportive relationships with children
  • Provides resources and tips to promote social and emotional skills at home
  • Helps build partnerships between families and educators to support capacity to prevent and address challenging behaviours
More Information on the Evidence Behind the Pyramid Model:

Early Learning & Child Care Programs

How is the Pyramid Model delivered in Nova Scotia?

The delivery of the Pyramid Model program is funded through the Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. There are no fees to participate. The program is implemented by Nova Scotia Early Childhood Development Intervention Services through 12 of our NSECDIS service locations.

Implementation is also supported by an external Provincial Leadership Team (PLT) which is a collaborative team of Nova Scotia early years stakeholders who serve in an advisory capacity to NSECDIS to support best practice recommendations for the implementation of the Pyramid Model program in Nova Scotia.

To find out more about the membership of the
Provincial Leadership Team: Click Here

Our NSECDIS Pyramid Model team will work with your early learning and child care program to:

    • Assist you in forming and developing a Leadership Team within your program to support the implementation of the Pyramid Model
    • Provide access to Pyramid Model training for your staff on topics related to:
      • social emotional learning,
      • positive behaviour support planning,
      • trauma informed care and
      • culturally responsive practices
    • Provide on site coaching for Educators within your program to support the use of social emotional learning practices
    • Support your program to reach and sustain program wide implementation of Pyramid Model practices and to celebrate your successes!

What is program-wide implementation of Pyramid Model practices?

Program-wide implementation of the Pyramid Model refers to a systemic effort within an early learning and child care program to implement the Pyramid Model. In program-wide implementation, a leadership team within the program guides the implementation process and develops the supports and infrastructure needed to ensure that implementation of the Pyramid Model can occur within the classrooms and services provided to children and their families. The Leadership Team, with representation from program administrators and educators, is focused on the ongoing process of supporting the implementation of the Pyramid Model and using data-based decision-making to guide implementation efforts and monitor outcomes.

The program-wide implementation model ensures that programs are attending to both the implementation of evidence-based practices and the development of the infrastructure to support the durable implementation of those practices.

Positive Outcomes

How programs benefit from the Pyramid Model.

Programs that have used this approach have experienced the following:

    • Reductions in child challenging behavior
    • Increases in children’s social skills
    • Increased satisfaction of program staff and families
    • Reduced turnover in the program
    • Increases in teachers’ competence and confidence in the support of children
    • Changes in classroom and program climate
    • Sustained implementation of the Pyramid Model

What will happen next?

After submitting an Expression of Interest, your program will be contacted by a member of our NSECDIS team and will be guided through an orientation process that includes:

    • An introduction to what is the Pyramid Model
    • What it means to implement the Pyramid Model
    • Implementation Exploration & Readiness
    • Leadership Team Development
    • Family Engagement
    • What is Practice Based Coaching
    • The use of Data Based Decision Making to support implementation
Early learning and child care programs interested in finding out more about the Pyramid Model in Nova Scotia are encouraged to reach out and complete the Expression of Interest Form below.

Pyramid Model Training Modules

NSECDIS is able to provide access to Pyramid Model training modules at no cost to your early learning & child care program. For more information on the training modules available through NSECDIS

Visit Our E-Learning Site For More Info

For Educators

What is Pyramid Model coaching?

  • Educators and Inclusion Coaches share feedback together that clarifies and fine-tunes efforts towards goals
  • Alternate paths towards goals, different ways of observing or adjusting coaching are all possibilities to help Educators reach their goals

Practice-based coaching is a cyclical process for guiding early childhood educator’s use of evidence-based practices for promoting positive child outcomes. Practice-based coaching involves the following components:

Collaborative Partnerships
    • Educators and Inclusion Coaches are partners throughout the coaching process
    • Inclusion coaches support Educators one-on-one to enable a change in practices
Shared Goals and Action Planning
    • Educators and Inclusion Coaches decide together what goals to work on and when
    • Educators and Inclusion Coaches draft the steps toward those goals together, step-by-step
Focused Observation
    • Inclusion Coaches provide a second set of eyes to determine if goals are being met
    • With the Inclusion Coach alongside, Educators can find ways to step back and look at the whole picture of their work with young children
Reflection and Feedback
  • Educators and Inclusion Coaches share feedback together that clarifies and fine-tunes efforts towards goals
  • Alternate paths towards goals, different ways of observing or adjusting coaching are all possibilities to help Educators reach their goals

What is an Inclusion Coach?

An Inclusion Coach is a member of our NSECDIS team who is trained in Pyramid Model practice-based coaching. They will provide individualized on-site coaching within your program to support you as an Early Childhood Educator, in the implementation of Pyramid Model practices. They will also assist with the collection of data to support decision making around implementation.

What does it mean to be coached?

You’re interested in being coached, but what exactly does it look like? Being coached means there is someone in your corner helping you to find inspiration and supports so you can realize your vision as an early childhood educator. Educators and Inclusion Coaches work together to set goals, take a step back to observe the early learning environment, and reflect on the whole process together.

If interested, listen below to the experiences of other Nova Scotia Educators who have received Pyramid Model coaching:

Resources

The Pyramid Model has many resources for educators to support social emotional learning.

For more resources for Educators visit our Resources page. For more information on the Pyramid Model and the National Centre for Pyramid Model Innovations (NCPMI): https://challengingbehavior.org

Celebrating Programs Currently Involved in the
Nova Scotia Pyramid Model Program