Connections: A Relationship-Based Phase Model

“Connections: A Relationship-Based Phase Model"

This easy-to-follow manual for early childhood professionals incorporates the work of the renowned experts at JCFS Chicago’s Virginia Frank Child Development Center and its more than 60 years as a therapeutic nursery. The guide emphasizes the importance of building strong teacher and caregiver relationships with young children to promote a secure, healthy, and productive learning environment.

Buy Connections

The curriculum is based on three phases of relationships: the separation and attachment phase, the autonomy development phase, and the development of initiative and consolidation of skills phase. The book identifies behavior patterns and offers techniques for responding to each phase in the classroom, with strategies for managing emotions and skills for assisting children to cope, which include concrete suggestions for activities, songs, and books.

Chapters on incorporating group discussions about children’s feeling and experiences, the importance of teacher self-awareness, communication with parents, and help with children who have special needs and behavioral difficulties further underscore the importance of focusing on young children’s emotional health as an effective means of building strong foundations for lifelong learning.

Reviews
“Groundbreaking, overdue...should be required reading for every young education major, state and federal legislator, school board member and program administrator, nationwide.” -- Michael Trout, Director of the Infant-Parent Institute

“Emphasizing relationships and feelings is what makes this developmentally informed work so valuable.” -- Frances Stott, Erikson Institute

Buy Connections