Levine Academy’s Weinreb Early Childhood Center has received a grant from the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas focusing on our students’ social and emotional well-being. To fulfill this grant, we have partnered with D.O.T.S. For Kids, a company which provides a variety of individualized services for children, implementing the Alert Program® in our EC classrooms. The Alert Program® teaches children how to recognize and name how their bodies are feeling. The program was developed by two occupational therapists to help people of all ages learn how to self-regulate.

Self-regulation is that inner drive that helps you get through your day. Do you need coffee in the morning to help wake you up? Do need to listen to music while you work?  Do you need complete silence in order to focus on tasks? Or maybe you need a sound machine to help you fall asleep at night? As adults, we have learned how to self-regulate. Young children have not yet learned how to do this. The Alert Program® teaches them how to recognize how their bodies are feeling by using a “speed dial” and the analogy of a car’s motor. Sometimes, that motor is revving really fast, sometimes it’s really slow and at other times it is revving at a steady pace. Our teachers have all been trained on how to use this program and have started using the Speed Dial and the program during circle time in their classrooms. If a child can name and understand his/her feelings, he or she is better able to control and manage those feelings.

This grant also provides for an occupational therapist to be on campus to offer classroom support, training and real-time coaching to our teachers. Having a trained professional on campus to help our faculty has been invaluable. They have been able to observe in the classroom and meet with teachers individually, and as teams. The professional offers different strategies to try with individuals or groups of children, and also provides a list of suggested items we can use to enhance our program. For the teachers and staff at Levine, the most important aspect of this grant is early detection – study after study shows the value of early detection in early childhood years. This grant further enhances collaboration with parents and teachers to create an individualized plan to help their child learn and grow. Having a program that trains our teachers in ways to help children learn to self-regulate, while also providing tools and support to better serve all of the children in our care, is nothing but amazing. We are excited for you, our parents, to learn more!

Please be on the lookout for a Parent Zoom presentation from Amy Ornelas (OT and owner of D.O.T.S. for Kids) and Andy Blum (our school counselor). This program will explain sensory issues, occupational therapy, the Alert Program and how parents can help reinforce the programs at school when they get home. An email will go out to parents once we have a date scheduled for this program.