Bringing on a new pyramid model site requires commitment from leadership, training and internal implementation. Site closing or restructuring internal processes that no longer have pyramid model as a focal point impact the amount of practicing sites annually. 

Contributing Factors:

• Strong leadership team
• Training/coaching

Limiting Factors

• Staff turnover
• Lack of site resources/capacity to provide necessary training. 

The most critical time to nurture a healthy, productive, successful future are the years between birth and age five. Nearly 90% of brain growth takes place during the first five years of life, with more than 1 million new neural connections formed every second. These are the connections that build brain architecture – the foundation upon which all later learning, behavior and health depend.  

Science shows that starting early can have major short- and long-term effects on cognitive and social-emotional development. Early learning has been linked to progress in school, increased earnings, and reductions in antisocial behavior, welfare participation, and trouble with the law.

• Birth to Three

• Early Care & Education (AKA Childcare)

• Head Start

• Libraries

• Nonprofits

• Parents, Caregivers, Families

• Pre-K/Elementary Education

• Shine Early Learning (Youngstar)

• University of Wisconsin Extension- Dodge County 

• Watertown Family Connections 

• Wisconsin Alliance for Infant Mental Health (WI AIMH)

• Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA)

• Wisconsin Latino Chamber of Commerce- FUTURO Program

Our community recognizes the need for collaboration and connecting support 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. 

Program–wide implementation of the Pyramid Model Framework consists of

• Systemwide commitment to training and coaching and implementation of programmatic and classroom practices

• Practices and goals are guided by a leadership team- (state, community, and program) and driven by data

• Early care professionals are supported by internal and external coaches that work with the adults to apply skills and strategies that ensure equitable outcomes for infants, young children and their families

*Goal:  Increase number of Early Care and Education sites implementing Pyramid Model.

Action steps:

• Support sites with application for program-wide implementation and Leadership Academy (provided by WI-AIMH) WI-AIMH now has an open application period. Programs should apply when ready and Leadership Academy will be scheduled after the approval of application.

  • Fall 2024/Spring 2025 for Implementation Academies and initial Professional Development (related to leadership team roles)

• Create scalable frameworks that allow for the adaptation and replication of successful practices across various community settings.

• Provide modified PM training and program-wide onboarding to committed sites

• Sites identified by established partners who serve children and families 

• Center-Based Providers:

  • Informational Session Overview of Pyramid Model- upon request and bi-annually at Dodge/Jefferson county directors caucus

• Family Based Providers:

  • Continue communication with WEESSN, SHINE and FUTURO coaches and community partners to identify any potential family providers

  • Childcare directors caucus Dodge/Jefferson counties to network with providers

Pyramid Model sites include - Dodgeland School District, Watertown Unified School District, Community Care Preschool & Child Care, Future All Stars Acadamy, Willows Christian Child Care.