KooLKIDS

Empowering children to live well with themselves and others

Steps Involved

KooLKIDS is a comprehensive emotion regulation program based on a strong body of empirical research. It incorporates a framework whereby children's outcomes and progress over time can be measured and monitored.

The KooLKIDS program comprises three important steps.

Step One: Pre-Intervention Baseline

Prior to commencing the KooLKIDS program, it is important to gain a baseline to take stock of where the children are at in terms of their emotion regulation, emotional intensity, self-concept, empathy, social skills, friendship skills and social and emotional wellbeing. This information provides a snapshot of the children's functioning prior to commencing the program, may highlight for facilitators any particular difficulties children may be having, and provides a baseline measure to compare post-intervention scores to evaluate progress over time and assess any changes that occur as a result of completing the program.

Step Two: Session Intervention

The sessions are divided into four modules which are based around the acronym 'KooL':

The sessions teach children a range of emotion regulation strategies and provide weekly opportunities to revise strategies. The format of these sessions includes a variety of tasks, utilising a combination of group collaboration and individual self-reflection, games, written tasks, artistic activities, role plays, story-telling, and behavioural challenges.

The format of these sessions include a variety of activities including; life mapping, relaxation and breathing, group discussions, physical games, role playing, reflective listening and workbooks. Cognitive behavioral strategies such as problem solving, reading body cues, and identifying unhelpful thoughts that affect actions are also included.

Step Three: Post-Intervention Evaluation

Evaluation is an important component of KooLKIDS. Upon completion of the program, the measures taken at baseline of emotion regulation, emotional intensity, self-concept, empathy, social skills, friendship skills and social and emotional wellbeing are re-administered to the children. Scores on the measures at the two time points are compared to evaluate the changes that have taken place in students following the completion of the program.