Mass. early-education agency outlines behavioral-health supports, launches STREET training with OCA

The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care detailed a package of behavioral-health supports for early childhood programs and launched a trauma-focused training initiative called STREET (Strategic Trauma Responsive Early Education Training) during a virtual “lunch and learn” session on Oct. 12.

EEC’s special education support specialist Amy Smith Seoli, who leads the agency’s behavioral-health team, said the team’s goals include helping teachers build classroom foundations for social-emotional learning, reducing exclusionary discipline, and supporting educator wellness. “A dysregulated teacher cannot help a dysregulated student,” Smith Seoli said.

The webinar explained how the behavioral-health team responds to program referrals, the role of statewide grantees that provide longer-term mental-health consultation, and how programs can access training and coaching. EEC staff described the Pyramid Model as the framework the agency uses to tier supports: universal classroom practices at the base, targeted social-skills supports in the middle, and individualized one-on-one interventions at the top. Chris Lloyd, a behavioral-health support specialist, called the Pyramid Model “the gold standard” for framing classroom supports and pointed attendees to online resources and regional learning communities.

Why it matters: EEC and the Office of the Child Advocate (OCA) framed the effort as a system-level response to rising behavioral challenges in very young children, reported increases in aggression and anxiety, and a concurrent need to address workforce stress. Officials said classrooms are seeing behaviors that raise safety concerns and that programs sometimes face waiting lists for mental-health consultation.

What EEC described: The behavioral-health team — formed roughly a year and a half ago — offers on-site technical assistance, referrals to early childhood mental-health consultation grantees, connections to the statewide professional-development centers (PDCs), and coordination with licensors, quality specialists and other EEC units. EEC said referrals come from programs, licensors and grantees. The agency listed region-specific consultation providers and said individual child observations or referrals for outside services require parental consent.

Specific supports and initiatives discussed - Early childhood mental-health consultation grants: Grantee organizations perform classroom observations, coach staff, help programs develop individualized behavioral support plans, and can support family contacts and referrals to community services (with parental consent). EEC named regional grantees including Behavioral Health Network and the Collaborative (Western Mass), Community Health Link/Together for Kids (Central Mass), MSPCC (Northeast), JRI (Southeast) and Walker (Boston). - Pyramid Model and Pyramid Model Plus: EEC recommended Pyramid Model tiered supports and noted statewide Pyramid Model Plus learning communities led by Connected Beginnings (UMass Donahue Institute). - Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative and PDCs: EEC described these grants and centers as avenues for coaching, inclusion supports and program-quality work. - New materials and tools for 2025: EEC said it has solicited a vendor to develop a toolkit for programs, is assembling a supplemental resource guide, and will offer additional trainings for educators and leaders. - STREET training: The Office of the Child Advocate’s Center on Child Well-being and Trauma and EEC developed a six-module series on the agency LMS and Strong Start platform; modules are available in English, Portuguese, Spanish and simplified Chinese. Joy Cohen, deputy director at the Center on Child Well-being and Trauma, said the center “supports child serving state agencies in their work to become trauma informed and responsive.”

Operational concerns and next steps: Presenters acknowledged capacity limits — a small EEC behavioral-health team serving multiple regions, and mental-health grantees that sometimes have waitlists. Crisis management for very young children (for example, violent behaviors or elopement from classrooms) was singled out as an area needing specialized response; speakers noted that mobile crisis teams may not always have early-childhood expertise. EEC said it is planning communities of practice, train‑the‑trainer sessions (core champions), deeper-dive curricula, and follow-up email communications and recordings to sustain the work beyond the kickoff week.

Who to contact and materials: Presenters said slides, a flyer and links to LMS modules and Pyramid Model resources will be emailed to registrants; the webinar recording will also be made available.

Ending: EEC and OCA urged programs to use the LMS training as a first step, contact their regional behavioral-health specialist for on-site support, and watch for additional STREET offerings in the spring.