engleski

Promoting socio-emotional development in Croatia: PATHS program study design and implementation

The primary aim of the Croatian PATHS project is to implement universal preventive program PATHS (Greenberg and Kusche) into Croatian school and pre-school conditions. Main goal of the project is promotion of socio-emotional competences and skills. As there is no universal, social-emotional curriculum such as PATHS currently being implemented in Croatia, successful implementation of curriculum and strong evidence will in great way contribute to Croatian preventive practice. We expect that PATHS effectiveness will lead to program integration into regular academic curriculum. Presented study will evaluate the short-term outcomes of the PATHS intervention in three different regions of Croatia: Zagreb, Rijeka and Istria. PATHS program will be delivered into school and pre-school conditions in those regions. Each region has 5 intervention schools s and 5 control schools and 2 pre-school settings. Pairs of participating schools were matched on key demographic variables and then randomized to intervention or control conditions. Randomization by schools will ensure that intervention and control classrooms remain independent. Preschool design follows 6- year old children in three timelines: 1st being December 2010, second being September 2011 and third being May 2012. The intervention will be delivered to the 1st grade by classroom teachers and by pre-school teachers to preschoolers. Multi-informant and multi-method measurement strategy will be employed for evaluation: children will be assessed by teacher ratings and by individual interview directly. Oral presentation will present study design and PATHS implementation.

study design; socio-emotional learning; prevention program; children and youth

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