The Impact

Start Well has been an incredible blessing to our school! Before they entered our campus, we were approaching our children with the best of intentions and kindest of hearts, but we didn’t have a systematic way of teaching social-emotional health & development or a clear and helpful behavior management system, which led to unnecessary time-outs and a misunderstanding of our kiddos.

Working with Start Well has been an amazing experience. They are insightful, knowledgeable, patient, clear in their teaching and very easy to work with! We have appreciated how they have equipped our director and office manager to be the driving force behind the pyramid learning for our staff, asking us questions to help us think through solutions when they could have just told us the answer. Their ability to teach & equip is unmatched! Not only were they a great resource for the administrative staff, they have also helped getting our teaching staff to buy in to the scientific research and measured effectiveness of the pyramid model. The teaching staff was somewhat resistant to this new model, but Start Well was endlessly patient in answering the same questions repeatedly in different ways to help all of us grasp the concepts. Their education and experience is obvious in anything they teach, allowing all of our staff to build a healthy trust in their instructions.

We have already been able to see measurable progress in how we interact with our kiddos and how we approach behaviors! Beyond the teaching and abilities in the program, Start Well is extremely organized, punctual, professional and an absolute gem to work with! We have appreciated every bit of time they have shared with us here at the Wave!! We can’t wait to see how our school grows into this new model over the coming years!

We are so grateful – thank you for sending Start Well to us!

Start Well is an organization dedicated to supporting and teaching adults how to support and teach children in their lives to be successful. With knowledgeable and compassionate consultants to guide us and a specific process to follow, teachers and parents form an alliance to reduce challenging behaviors and increase positive, preferred behaviors in their child. Start Well has enhanced our preschool program and we appreciate all their guidance and all we have learned from this valuable organization. Knowing we have their knowledge and support has given us the confidence to help many current and future children and families. 

Please let me begin that I don’t look at it as training, experience, or help that I received last year; it was a partnership like no other I have encountered during my 24 years in education, 11 being in a leadership position.

I have to admit, when I set up my first meeting with Hannah Thompson, I was hesitant and was prepared to meet with an outside source that had great ideas but little practical help for our school. What a mistake that assumption turned out to be. From our first meeting, Hannah came prepared with physical materials to use in our classrooms for our new social emotional curriculum and a slew of online, easily accessible articles for teachers and parents. The amount of work she put into customizing the training and resources we needed is indescribable. You could imagine my disappointment when she told me she was moving to pursue her Ph.D in Child and Family Studies at the University of Nashville.

But… in true Start Well fashion, Hannah hand chose her replacement for me, and Kim Versluis became our new Start Well partner/trainer. She picked up right where Hannah left off and brought even more resources and supplied personal training sessions for our teachers. She also walked me through step-by-step the PTRYC process when working with a child and their family on goals for the child. She set up the entire team, including the parents and in her gentle, encouraging way, got everyone on board. At the end of the process, our staff was well-trained and able to train other staff on what we learned. The parents were willing and informed on what their next steps were for this year to help their son be successful in kindergarten!

Thank you Start Well for the BEST resource there is for our children of the future. With your help, I know this upcoming generation will be emotionally equipped, socially responsible, and educationally prepared for their future.

We have had the great experience working with Start Well since May 2019. As a preschool director, I continue to benefit from the Community of Practice Resources provided. I know there is a group of professionals that I can lean to for support. Start Well has come and supported our afterschool program, our preschool program, and our family/community engagement programs with tailored trainings to meet the needs of our program staff and our community.  

Start Well has been a tremendous asset to our organization.

Their expertise in Social Emotional Learning and Mental Health has allowed us as an organization to examine our training materials, and training practices and create enhanced support systems for our front-line staff. The ability to speak to specialists and connect our organization to their Professional Learning Community has allowed us to develop and expand the support we are able to offer students and families.

We look forward to our continued partnership.

For the past two years Start Well has helped me with challenging behaviors and understanding the children better; they not only provide tools but offer one-to-one services to our staff and families. This has created a better environment to work in, but also to help the children achieve their mental health that is so needed nowadays.  

I am reaching out to thank you for the Start Well program. Our school, Zion Early Childhood Education Center in Anaheim, has benefited greatly from our participation in your program. We have received teacher and parent training, support, and guidance.

Veronica has been amazing with her knowledge and investment in our students and teachers.

We are very grateful for the service you have provided us.

Mi nombre es Marilu Rojas, una proveedora de cuidado infantil de la Ciudad de Buena Park. El motivo de esta carta es para expresar lo agradecida que estoy con el programa Start Well y también para reconocer el gran trabajo que Start Well está haciendo al impartir todo el conocimiento y dedicación en las clases que tenemos cada semana.

El tiempo que he compartido con Start Well ha sido muy enriquecedor ya que he puesto en práctica todas las técnicas, estrategias, visuales, etc. que me brinda la consultora y me están ayudando mucho a mí, a mi equipo de trabajo y definitivamente a los niños en mi programa.

Excelente programa, excelente profesora... Muchas gracias.

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My name is Marilu Rojas, a child care provider for the City of Buena Park. The reason for this letter is to express how grateful I am to the start well programs and also to recognize the great work that Start Well IS doing by imparting all the knowledge and dedication in the classes we have every week.

The time that I have shared with Start Well has been very enriching since I have put into practice all the techniques, strategies, visuals, etc. that the consultant provides me and they are helping me so much, my work team and definitely for my children.

Excellent program, excellent teacher... Thank you very much.

Receiving the experience in developing a “behavior plan” has helped tremendously with our students, parents, teachers, and for our program. The joint effort of everyone involved, our ECMH Consultant, parents, teachers, and myself, had such a positive outcome that we will continue to implement the behavior plan into our program year after year.

Although we did not have a long time to work with the ECMH Consultant, we received so much support and insight on how to do a behavior plan and build a team of support in a short time.

Thank you (Start Well) for all your expertise and input, you helped us create a bridge to help the most vulnerable in our preschool program!

The support I have received in the past year from Start Well's resources, team and our school consultant has kept our doors open during Covid pandemic!

Needs for adults and children increased dramatically. As a director, I was able to offer my staff peace during chaotic times by providing mental health resources that could be implemented immediately. I kept challenging children in our program by working effectively with families on strategies provided by my consultant and resources that truly worked! My consultant gave me the strength to tackle many issues in front of me and gave me the confidence to persevere!

I am truly thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the Start Well Community! The best decision in my 30 years directing.

Thank you so much for your time. It is so helpful to have a resource where I can vent my frustrations with the behavioral setbacks, can assess what I am currently doing that is working (and what is not), and can brainstorm ways to intervene in an appropriate way. I appreciate your support of reaching out to parents with the ASQ-SE and am looking forward to implementing some of the other interventions.

We are so, so grateful for Start Well and the amazing work they do for and with the ECE community. Our program has greatly benefited from our ongoing coaching and consultations with Kim. Her dedication, insight and effectiveness has been invaluable to our teaching team’s confidence in creating targeted strategies and goals that support children’s learning and building positive and trusting relationships. Thank you for providing supports and “tools” that our Early Years Educators need to navigate through these unpredictable times.

Quiero compartirles lo que el programa START WELL me ha ayudado en lo personal y profesional a conocer mejor mis potencialidades y mis limites. El tener una consultora profesional visitando mi programa para ofrecer coaching, inicialmente en el 2018 con Ms. Rhysa Suh, cuando buscaba como ayudar a una niña en su desarrollo socioemocional, de cual juntos las familias y maestros tuvimos un gran éxito. Ahora después de 4 años quise retomar el programa START WELL para actualizarme y también porque terminé un ciclo de familias y niños, y quise tener el apoyo para mis nuevos niños y familias, así como el conectarnos todas (maestras, familias y niños) en un mismo lenguaje. Ahora con Ms. Veronica Oliver ha sido una nueva experiencia, yo como profesional necesitaba platicar de mis inquietudes y poder hablar con honestidad sobre las preocupaciones de mi programa y asistentes, como manejar el programa ya con la experiencia adquirida, pero siempre con la humildad de poder aprender algo nuevo para desarrollar mejor mi programa en un ambiente positivo, sensible y comprensivo con estrategias profesionales basados en [Modelo] Pirámide. ¡Muchas gracias!

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I want to share with you how the START WELL program has helped me personally and professionally to better understand my potential and my limits. Having a professional consultant visit my program to offer coaching, initially in 2018 with Ms. Rhysa Suh, when I was looking for how to help a girl in her social-emotional development, of which together the families and teachers had great success. Now after 4 years I wanted to resume the START WELL program to update myself and also because I finished a cycle of families and children, and I wanted to have support for my new children and families, as well as to connect all of us (teachers, families and children) in a same language. Now with Ms. Veronica Oliver it has been a new experience, as a professional I needed to talk about my concerns and be able to speak honestly about the concerns of my program and attendees, how to manage the program already with the experience acquired, but always with the humility of being able to learn something new to better develop my program in a positive, sensitive and understanding environment with professional strategies based on the Pyramid [Model]. Thank you so much!

We couldn’t be happier with our relationship not only with Kim but the entire experience! We are so thankful and truly feel every school needs a “Kim”!!!

Start Well is a partner I was especially thankful for in 2021 and moving forward. They align so perfectly around our core values and how we integrate learning. The tools they are providing our teachers will benefit our students for years to come.