The Wisconsin Pyramid Model is a framework for implementing a culturally responsive and equitable multi-leveled system of supports designed to enhance social and emotional competence of young children, promote the development of program policies and practices, and provide early care and education providers with practice-based coaching to ensure that evidence based practices are integrated and used with fidelity. Wi-AIMH

The Pyramid Model framework focuses on:

• prevention of behavior that challenges by intentionally supporting nurturing and responsive relationships, 
• creating high-quality learning environments, 
• teaching and supporting the practice of key social and emotional skills, and 
• designing collaborative systems to support caregivers to employ highly individualized supports when children need them. 

Who and Why the Pyramid Model?
Our community recognizes the need for collaboration and connecting supports to all those who are working with and caring for infants, toddlers, and young children in Dodge and Jefferson counties. The Pyramid Model provides a framework for intentional implementation of practices that support social and emotional learning and address the distress that infants, toddlers and young children- and the adults who care about and for them-experience when there is challenging behavior. The primary reason young children are suspended and expelled from early care and education is the presence of challenging behavior. Limiting suspension and expulsion relies on increasing the capacity of adults, at the program and community level, to work to understand the meaning of a child’s behavior, to reframe their thinking, and respond in ways that guide and support social and emotional learning. 

Our Mission Statement
Implementation of the Pyramid Model supports the vision of Every Child Thrives through a community coordinated social-emotional framework specifically designed to support families and educators of children age 0-8 in early care and education.

Watertown Unified School District

Dodgeland School District, Juneau/Reesville,/Clyman/Lowell

Willows Christian Child Care Center,  Iron Ridge

Future All Star's Academy, Juneau

Mary Linsmeier - Watertown.

Gingerbread Preschool & Childcare, Watertown 

Community Care and Preschool, Beaver Dam 

Implementation of Pyramid Model practices occurs through and is comprised of team-based, data-based decisions, guided by action plans and supported through technical assistance, coaching and professional development.  The Pyramid Model recognizes systemic parallel process, acknowledging that at all levels of implementation - state, community, and program - they will possess all of these components.

Research demonstrates that children who enter school with social and emotional competence have better academic achievement and school success. These results carry into young adulthood. Program– wide implementation assists programs in being responsive to the individual social and emotional needs of children and their families.

How we do it (Systems Change)

• Provide initial training in the Pyramid Model content and practices (24 hours), continued training with embedded coaching and technical assistance around Pyramid Model practices and professional growth. Pyramid Model training is an essential element of program–wide implementation. Wisconsin’s Pyramid Model training focuses on the evidence based practices promoted in the Pyramid Model framework. These practices address relationship, environment, intentional teaching, and individualized intervention. The evidence based practices support programs in addressing the social and emotional and other domains, program standards, and guiding principles of the Wisconsin Model Early Learning Standards.

• Support early childhood educators with focused observations and feedback to implement evidence based practices. The results from these observation tools guide Practice Based Coaching that supports classroom teachers to integrate use of evidence based practices into their teaching.

• Support teams for continuity of the evidence based practices and implementation as a system within their own organization. Program–wide implementation of the Pyramid Model is the model for implementing Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) in programs for young children.

• Use data to support implementation and monitor progress toward fidelity of Pyramid Model Benchmarks of Quality. 

• Collectively work together to support community wide implementation of Pyramid Model practices across all agencies in our community that work with and care for infants, toddlers, young children and their families.