The homepage of Pyramid Resources for Infant & Toddler Social Emotional Development (PRISM) reminds us that, “Every year over 4,000 children are suspended from public preschools for challenging behaviors… and that doesn’t include the many children suspended from private preschools.”
PRISM was developed within the Juniper Gardens Project in Kansas City. The PRISM website is a treasure chest of infant and toddler focused resources and information that supports high quality social and emotional skill development with over 300 resources from a variety of origins, including the Barton Lab at Vanderbilt University, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Bright Futures at Georgetown University, and the National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations.
The site, which is user friendly, holds information for coaches, teachers, administrators, and families. The information comes in a variety of formats: videos, handouts, infographics, forms to be completed, articles, book nooks, activities to engage children in, visuals to use in an early childhood environment, and more! On the resources page, easily filter the information to find resources for a particular topic.
Some of the filter options include equity, a breakdown of the tiers of the Pyramid Model (levels 1, 2, & 3), and exploration of each item of the Teaching Pyramid Infant Toddler Observation Scale (TPITOS).
- TPITOS is the fidelity observation tool for implementation of Pyramid practices. Upcoming training opportunities to become reliable in this tool can be found on the Healthy Child Care Colorado website.
On The PRISM website, the newly updated Infant and Toddler Tier 1 Trainings are available, though not yet released by NCPMI. For those newer to the Pyramid Model, there is a link to an introductory video. If you are new to implementing the Pyramid Model in Infant Toddler Child Care, there are infographics and a PowerPoint to support you. There is also a recorded webinar “Using TPITOS to Support the Use of Social-Emotional Teaching Practices in Infant and Toddler Classrooms” from Brookes Publishing which can be accessed from the PRISM Facebook page.
Again, the PRISM website is easy to navigate and filter the resources. And, if you would like an introduction to this website from Dr. Kathryn Bigelow, the Principal Investigator of the Jupiter Gardens Project and one of the authors of the TPITOS, click here!!
by Lisa Heberlin, Pyramid Facilitator