The Center for Emotionally Responsive Practice at Bank Street College works to help teachers, administrators and school based clinicians support the emotional well being of children in early childhood and early grade school settings. Emotionally Responsive Practice addresses:
Emotionally Responsive Practice provides school staff with a deeper understanding of the developmental and life experience issues that often express themselves in the classroom and cause disruptive behavior. The Center's work often helps improve classroom dynamics for participating teachers and children. It also constitutes a form of preventive mental health for children in participating classrooms, as the work enhances relationships and communication within the classroom environment and helps to decrease emotional isolation.
The approaches used by the Center have been documented in two publications written by the Center's director. These publications, Unsmiling Faces: How Preschools Can Heal (1995, 2007), and, Creating Schools That Heal: Real Life Solutions (2002) are published by Teachers College Press and available through the Bank Street Bookstore as well as many other booksellers.