The Relevance of Self at Work: Emotional Intelligence and Staff Training in After-School Environments. Working Paper Series.

In recent years, after-school programs have emerged as an important resource for child development. In addition to their role in supplementing academic preparation and providing supervision when parents are working, after-school programs also offer an opportunity for social and emotional growth. This paper examines how adult educators in these programs can mobilize their inner-resources and social-emotional aptitude to achieve good relationships with their coworkers and with the children in their care. The Bringing Yourself to Work Project, a professional development program for after-school educators at Wellesley College provides an empirical foundation for the relevance of emotional intelligence and relational psychology at work. The authors discuss issues of self-awareness, cultural boundaries, and the potential for adults to learn relational skills. (C) 2001 Seligson,M. Macphee, M. Relevance of Self at Work 3 The Relevance of Self at Work: Emotional Intelligence and Staff Training in After-School Environments INTRODUCTION “Dave” is the director of a large after-school and summer program for school-age children living in a diverse metropolitan center. He is a wizard at creating a safe haven for children who live in poverty and face violence in their neighborhoods, schools, and homes. Dave’s ability to let each child in the program know that he cares about them magically transforms a less-than-ideal facility into a sanctuary. What makes Dave so unique in his patient, loving approach to the children in his program? Dave’s father was very strict, and pushed him hard to succeed. Dave and his siblings weren’t allowed to express much emotion in the family. Even so, Dave found the structure he experienced as he was growing up to be helpful when he started working with kids because having clear boundaries gave them a sense of safety. But he discovered something he didn’t know he had—his own nurturing ability, perhaps derived from his own longing for a more connected relationship with his Dad. Shioban took her job in another after-school program because of the immediate connection she made with her supervisor, the program’s executive director. In the job interview, Mary, the supervisor, asked Shioban about herself and what she had done in her life that prepared her to work with kids. Shioban felt immediately “heard” and knew that their working relationship in the program would be based on their similar values about what was important for the children. As this 1 This name, like that of other study participants, is a pseudonym to maintain confidentiality in the research. (C) 2001 Seligson,M. Macphee, M. Relevance of Self at Work 4 relationship grew through dealing with day-to-day issues, the two women developed a strong trust. Shioban never felt judged by Mary. They both learned from each other. Their relationship is critical to the reason she stays at the program, and Shioban is not sure that the values they share would be maintained by the larger organization if Mary were to leave. Many people think that Dave and Shioban’s social and emotional skills are innate — you either have them or you don’t — but Goleman’s (1995) “Emotional Intelligence” theory argues that anyone can learn these skills with the right training and support. The core concept of emotional intelligence is the ever-emerging process of self-awareness, where individuals are able to identify their emotions and manage them in various social environments (Weisinger 1998). We view this capacity as an asset in childcare because new insights in human development have highlighted the importance of children’s social and emotional development and the process through which it helps them learn. As individuals grow and develop from infancy to adolescence and into adulthood, they enter and experience the world in terms of relationships. Through relationships with parents and primary caregivers, infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers learn the meaning of self and the value of self-regulation, an important part of social and emotional competence. On the negative end, a national committee on child mental health argues that “children who do not achieve these age2 Salovey and Mayer (1990) and Daniel Goleman (1995) characterize this capacity as “intelligence. ” They have added an emotional component to Howard Gardner’s (1989) spectrum of multiple intelligences, focusing primarily on interpersonal intelligence. Salovey and Mayer list self-awareness as the first of five “domains” of emotional intelligence, upon which Goleman has expanded in two volumes. Discussions about the applications of these “domains” have become a cornerstone of innovative training strategies in business, teacher education, and now, in the education field (e.g. CASEL). 3 Psychologists working at The Wellesley College Stone Center and The Harvard Project on Women's Psychology and Girls' Development have taken the lead in developing this perspective, which argues that mutuality rather than independence characterizes health development. For in depth discussions on the rationale and applications of relational (C) 2001 Seligson,M. Macphee, M. Relevance of Self at Work 5 appropriate social and emotional milestones face a far greater risk for early school failure. ” (Child Mental Health Foundations and Agencies Network 2000). Expanding this perspective to older children, research and practice in psychology (Brown & Gilligan, 1992, Miller & Stiver 1997, Rogers 1993, Taylor, Gilligan, & Sullivan 1995) and education (Cohen 1999, Jones & Jones 1998, Krueger 1998, Pianta 1999) have argued that adult caregivers contribute to children's social and emotional needs, along with their physical needs, by engaging in quality interpersonal relationships. Identifying the characteristics of quality relationships for older children and youth, however, remains a challenge. Adults can enhance a child's self-esteem, foster social competence, and help to build academic skills, but some researchers maintain that the ideal way to achieve these goals is elusive, idiosyncratic and almost impossible to evaluate. Although empirical evidence clearly documents that children do better psychologically when they have at least one supportive relationship with an adult, Spencer contends that “we do not know how these relationships produce such significant effects,” (Spencer 2000: 1). This paper examines empirical and theoretical insights into how adults mobilize their inner resources and social-emotional aptitude to achieve good relationships with their co-workers and with the children and youth in their care. What are the magic ingredients that help Dave connect with vulnerable kids and Shioban connect with her supervisor? And more importantly, how can other care-givers learn these life skills? The integrative approach to professional development embedded in these questions forms the heart of the Bringing Yourself to Work project based at the psychology see Gilligan, 1982, 1996; Jordan 1991, Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver, & Surrey, 1991; Miller, 1976. (C) 2001 Seligson,M. Macphee, M. Relevance of Self at Work 6 Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College. The project focuses on training educators in self-awareness and relational practices to foster positive social-emotional learning environments for children. The theoretical foundation of this approach rests on increasing empirical and anecdotal evidence that success in life and in work is deeply connected with what Goleman (1998) calls “emotional literacy” with its five core aspects: self-awareness, the ability to handle emotions, selfmotivation, empathic capacities, and social skills. In the work setting, Goleman contends that human contact is more essential than technology in accounting for success in business. In his book, Working with Emotional Intelligence (1998:330), he cites the wry observation of one reviewer of training trends: “It is often the mundane and low technology factors of a training system that make the difference between a successful training program and wasted organizational resources. ” The Bringing Yourself to Work Project builds on Goleman’s view that among these low-tech factors are people with emotional intelligence. The following sections link empirical examples from pilot research and training sessions with after-school program directors in Massachusetts to highlight the relevance of self at work. Defining “self” is a complex task and beyond the scope of this paper, but we situate our working definition within the scope of relational psychology where one’s sense of agency and place in the world develops from present and past relationships. After introducing the socio-political context of after-school programs in the United States, we discuss how the relational 4 In relational theory, the individual needs intimate connection to provide the mirroring and resonance necessary for healthy psychological development (Erikson, 1963; Josselson, 1992). While these theorists are referring to primary relationships, others hold that critical developmental processes can be aided or hindered by relationships in the broader community, such as those encountered in a classroom or after-school program. (Villarruel, Lerner, eds. Promoting (C) 2001 Seligson,M. Macphee, M. Relevance of Self at Work 7 competence of childcare workers contributes to positive social and emotional environments for youth. Relational competence in childcare requires an awareness of self as an individual, a coworker, and as a role model for children. As such, we contextualize our discussion of selfawareness within the boundaries of the after-school work setting. Finally, we offer a rationale for how educators can learn Emotional-Intelligence. After-School: Rational and Relational Views “We all know that how we feel about ourselves and others can profoundly affect our ability to concentrate, to remember, to think, and to express ourselves. Many educators appreciate that we simply cannot separate “academic