Al's Pals

Al’s Pals is a comprehensive curriculum and teacher training program that develops social-emotional skills, self-control, problem-solving abilities, and healthy decision-making in children ages 3-6 years old.

Our children need support to learn social-emotional skills and healthy decision-making now, more than ever. Relying on trauma-informed care practices, Al’s Pals is a comprehensive curriculum and teacher training program that develops these skills, along with self-control, problem-solving, and healthy decision-making in children ages 3-6 years old.

In collaboration with school divisions, our team provides their Pre-K teachers with Al’s Pals curriculum and training.

NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED. EVIDENCE-BASED. A FOUNDATION TO THRIVE.

Al’s Pals provides young children with the skills to prepare for life’s challenges through interactive lessons, engaging puppets, original music, and impactful teaching approaches.

• Cultivate conflict-resolution and problem-solving skills
• Help children manage feelings and behaviors
• Build positive relationships & prevent bullying
• Establish caring, cooperative classrooms
• Teach children to make safe and healthy choices
• Build authentic family partnerships
• Accept differences
• Use self-control
• Express feelings appropriately

Interactions between teachers and children are critical to children’s positive development and learning.

The Al’s Pals curriculum is accompanied by training which builds teacher’s abilities to relate to children in positive ways and create a caring, cooperative classroom environment. The combined training and curriculum provide an effective framework for teachers to establish nurturing relationships with children while developing children’s social competence, self-regulation, thinking abilities, and language skills.

Videos

Create - a - Pal!

Partnerships:

The funding that makes this initiative possible is made available through the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth where EO is in their third round of funding. During funding cycles, EO has been awarded $150,000 to serve children, schools and families over the course of a three-year funding cycle. Their partnership allows us to connect with interested schools, Head Starts and childcare centers to provide the resources they need to facilitate Al’s Pals in their classroom.

Because the funding also comes from the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth (VFHY), which is supported through the Virginia’s Tobacco Commission, EO also focuses components of the curriculum on tobacco prevention opportunities for youth. The VFHY has worked to create branded messaging strategies that can be shared with both youth and families about the dangers of secondhand and thirdhand smoke in youth.

Overview of Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth:

Established in 1999 by the Virginia General Assembly, the VFHY empowers Virginia’s youth to make healthy choices by reducing and preventing youth tobacco and nicotine use, substance use, and childhood obesity. VFHY receives no taxpayer funds and is funded solely by a small share of Virginia’s annual payments from the nation’s major tobacco manufacturers through the Master Settlement Agreement. VFHY uses a comprehensive approach by funding research, developing marketing campaigns, and implementing classroom-based programs to prevent and reduce youth tobacco, substance use, and childhood obesity across all of Virginia. The VFHY directly reaches about 50,000 children each year through classroom-based prevention programs in public schools, after-school programs, community centers, daycares, and prevention programs across the state.