Affiliated Services for Children and Youth > For Goodness Sake Overview

Overview

For goodness sake

For Goodness Sake, an applied approach to behavioural intervention for young children, is a resource for early childhood educators, community health nurses and teachers.

Through its interactive CD format with video host Paula Todd, For Goodness Sake combines training along with a system to guide practitioners and parents in developing action plans to address challenging behaviour and support pro-sociality.

To assist the parents, the program includes a Parent's Guide brochure. (PDF format, 2 Mgb)

For more information, visit the For Goodness Sake website.

For Goodness Sake was developed over a number of years by a team in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, with the lead role taken by Affiliated Services for Children and Youth.

Overview

For Goodness Sake is a six-week program, in which the participants are guided and informed by the interactive CD. For Goodness Sake is based on these principles:

In their early years, children do not intentionally misbehave. They react to situations based on the skills they have at their disposal.
If a child is using challenging or aggressive behaviour, it's not to hurt others or to be difficult for parents and teachers. He or she simply needs to learn new, more appropriate ways to deal with situations.

Week 1

Where Are We At Now?

The teachers will meet to talk about the caregiving situation. They'll examine how well they're working as a team, their stress level, attitudes and organization in the classroom. They will also make sure they have up-to-date information about the child and the family.

Then over the next week, the teachers will observe the child in class and at play to see what makes him happy and content.

Week 2

Is This Child's Development Typical?

Teachers will review child development in six areas of skill: self-control and social skills, cognitive, motor, emotional and communication skills.

The teaching team will discover the child's areas of strength and weakness, and choose specific new skills to teach.

Week 3

Observing the Challenging Behaviour

The teachers will take a look at the child's challenging behaviour and examine the conditions surrounding it. Throughout the next week, they will make notes on the challenging behaviour – its severity and duration, the time of day it occurs, who is with him at the time, what's happening before to trigger the behaviour, and what kind of response follows.

Week 4

The Learning Environment

This week, the teachers will focus on the learning environment to see how it may be affecting the child's behaviour. The team will look at the physical environment - the layout of the classroom, the routines and activities. They will also look at the emotional environment - does the child feel comfortable and secure in the class? Does he or she have a good connection with teachers and other children?

The teaching team will learn whether they need to make changes in routines and activities to improve the physical environment. They will also look at ways to improve their interactions with the child. As a team, they'll agree on specific strategies to improve the learning environment.

Week 5

Understanding Behaviour

The teachers will examine a typical model of behaviour; one that helps explain many of the factors that influence challenging behaviour. In order to help the child learn new skills and appropriate behaviour to replace the challenging behaviour, teachers need to have an understanding of the patterns which may be recurring for the child. They'll then find out what happens to set off or trigger problems, and what response there is to the behaviour. They will then choose strategies to change the pattern of events and help the child meet his needs in a more positive way.

Week 6

Creating and Tracking a Long-Term Plan

Like anything new, it will take time for the child to learn new skills and behaviour. This week, the teaching team will review all the information they've gathered and strategies they've selected and set specific goals for both developmental skills and behaviour. They'll choose strategies from the areas explored in weeks one through five: team functioning, family involvement, enhancing the learning environment, interactional techniques, and understanding the pattern of behaviour. For Goodness Sake is a project of Affiliated Services for Children and Youth (ASCY), developed in collaboration with Hamilton Early Learning Partners for Best Practice.

Click here for a hard copy of the For Goodness Sake overview.