ecl Foundation
Challenges Amongst Our Children
ecl recognises and acknowledges the challenges facing our children today. Many of these include:
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Bullying
Substance abuse
Poverty
Mental illness
Broken families ( divorce etc..)
Child abuse
Anxiety
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We at ecl want to create platforms for parents, teachers, learners and other participants of child care and education to approach these issues sensitively using systemic methods. We have an array of tools that are used in workshops that are of benefit to various groups- helping them understand various role players and their impact on a learning or home environment.
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Read more about these tools below.
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Feelings Thermometer
The Feelings Thermometer is a learning tool co-designed by ecl practitioners, teachers and parents, to help children learn about their own and others feelings. Used every day, the
Feelings Thermometer can help increase children’s sensitivity to the needs of others and their sense of belonging in the group or family. It encourages children to express their feelings and discover what affects well being of themselves and others in their family.
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Your family can use this tool at home to explore emotions and develop a common language, which can grow in sophistication with use. When using the Feelings Thermometer, family members are able to create a snapshot of how they are that everyone can share. The thermometer creates a visual representation of the emotional and motivational mood of the family as a whole, allowing the whole system to celebrate together, accept difficult emotions, and to support those under stress.
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Group Mobile
The Group Mobile invites teachers and students to explore their interconnectedness, and their sense of belonging to the class group.
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Designed and developed by ecl practitioners with teachers and parents, the Group Mobile enables children and young people to explore who they are and how they relate to others as a group. It helps teachers to develop in children a strong sense of mutual and collective responsibility as they discover what both disturbs and supports their learning.
The mobile is constructed by the class as a three-dimensional, moving representation of the class group – a dynamic system – supporting teachers and children to find and maintain balance and harmony amongst themselves. As each person creates and attaches a personal representation of themselves that captures their sense of identity and self-expression, the mobile takes shape as a dynamic, visible representation of the entire class as a human system. It provides a focus for understanding and resolving conflicts and challenges within the group, as well as for celebrating moments of common achievement and harmony.
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Spider's Web
‘Spider’s Web’ is an activity that encourages the members of a group to think carefully about the ‘links’ that bind them together; help them to feel a strong sense of belonging. We can use it to explore the connections we have made in our BreathingSpace group, teachers in their classrooms but also parents with their families. The resulting web that is created threads the group together is a strong visual and visceral reminder that each individual is linked to all the others, and that the members form an intricate system through their various connections. The aim of this exercise is to allow us to dig a little deeper into the relationships and connections between individual members – those that are hidden or unknown as well as those that are obvious and already seen – that help develop and maintain a sense of belonging. By the end of the activity, everybody will be visibly linked to everybody else and there is an opportunity to focus on the physical sensation of this connection and what it means for how we relate.
Courageous Journeys in Education: The ecl Foundation and Netherfield Primary and Pre-School
This book is an invitation by the ecl foundation to join us in enhancing children’s lives, with tangible and powerful effect for all involved. Responding to the diverse and often disjointed systems and sectors that affect and intersect with children and young people, the ecl foundation works with a whole child/whole system approach with creativity, emotional well-being, and learning as core tenets of the practice.