Story by DALIA ISKANDER, Solutions News Bureau

It was a little over two years ago when the COVID pandemic began – it was the virus that shut down the world. We were encouraged to isolate from others, and to stay home to keep ourselves and our communities safe. Yet essential workers continued to do their jobs and put themselves out on the front lines to keep the world turning. Among them are the childcare providers – caregivers who have largely been under-recognized as ‘essential’ during the pandemic.

Alexa Strand, a worker in the Early Childhood Program (ECP) at Academy of the Sacred Heart, talks about her role as a caregiver, and the challenges she continues to face working through the pandemic.

Q:  Could you describe your role as a caregiver, and what it involves on a day-to-day basis?

A:  Of course, I am an early childhood educator. The main focus of what I do is preparing children for elementary school. I care for children ages 3 to 5, we try to keep the kids socially distanced and wearing masks throughout the entire day and the majority of activities. The only time the kids are allowed to take off their masks is for snacks, lunch time, and outdoor play if the weather allows it.

Q: What is a specific issue, or major challenge, you face in your role?

A: It’s tough to narrow it down to just one issue or challenge. Many of the problems we face feed into one another, but I’d say a major challenge I face is handling children’s outbursts when it comes to having to wear their masks, staying socially distanced, and just following all the new guidelines in place now that we’re taking extra precautions due to COVID.

Q: When you encounter this challenge, who do you turn to for help? What helps you respond to, or could potentially help with, this challenge?

A: When I encounter these types of challenges, I usually fall back on RULER to help alleviate the issue. RULER is an evidence-based program developed at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence that we started using in 2019. RULER is an acronym for the five skills of emotional intelligence:  Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating.

Q: What kind of help does RULER provide? What does it alleviate?

A: Well, because we familiarize ourselves and the children with RULER at the start of each school year, walking through the five skills is easy. So, I’ll ask a child who is having an outburst or difficult time to go through RULER together, we’ll recognize emotions in ourselves and others, understand the causes and consequences of emotions, label our emotions, express the emotions we’re feeling in that social context, then regulate the emotions with helpful strategies.

Going through these steps helps alleviate the issue by getting the child to focus on themselves and how they’re feeling, instead of focusing on not being able to do or get what they want. It also helps the child feel and understand their emotions, and then move on from them and let the problem go.

This investment and focused effort have helped us better respond to children’s needs during the COVID pandemic, it offers resources for employees and parents, and positions us to continue to address these challenges and provide expanded services for younger kids.

Q: How do you evaluate whether this program is effective? Have you witnessed evidence of this response working?

A: I personally believe that the RULER program is effective when done correctly. Evidence of this response working shows in how the kids behave after utilizing RULER compared to before. One of the largest ways we’ve witnessed RULER working is when we ask a child to go through RULER together, and they’re able to talk through what each step is, and practice each skill independently, without us guiding them. Some children on the older side of our group have become so familiar with the process that they rarely have outbursts or issues with following the COVID guidelines anymore, they just ask to “have alone time” to go through RULER, and then they sit farther away from the group and use RULER completely on their own.

Q: Is there data on the program Sacred Heart reports internally, or for funders, that measures effectiveness?

A: So Sacred Heart established a baseline of September 2019 to evaluate data and outcomes, we tracked how often students needed intervention, what intervention was used, what was improving or not, and in what areas, and student behavior and number of incidents for all students. At the end of each semester, we measure against those same data points and evaluate the outcomes. Plus, the Academy uses the database Blackbaud, which has the capability to protect confidential student health information as well as track behavior and times of contact with the head of the ECP.

Q: What things reduce the effectiveness of this kind of help?

A: The main thing that reduces effectiveness is the lack of training in RULER that new hires receive. When we first decided to try and implement RULER at Sacred Heart, our team attended a total of four RULER training sessions hosted by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District. The issue is, anyone who was or is hired after that, doesn’t get to attend four training sessions, instead another childcare worker explains the process to them, and there are a few videos they must watch on RULER, but that’s about it. There is a clear difference between caregivers that were there for the in-person training and caregivers who were not, it can be difficult to execute the RULER program at its full potential when you haven’t been fully trained and immersed in it.

Q: What would it take to overcome those limitations?

A: If Sacred Heart were to send all new hires in the ECP to the in-person training sessions that would probably help overcome the reduction in effectiveness we see at times. Maybe even having new caregivers shadow other coworkers when RULER is being used, that way they can see firsthand how it’s implemented and brought to life.

A: What do you want people to know about yourself, and caregivers in our community?

A: That we give our all to their children, we truly want the best for them and their families. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to make endless difficult decisions and choices, but we make each one with our safety and your children’s safety in mind, all we ask for is your support and patience through these unprecedented times.

This story was produced in collaboration with the New York & Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations and universities dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about successful responses to social problems. The group is supported by the Solutions Journalism Network.