About Us
Our Guiding Practices
As CoCreators, we organize our efforts to foster emotionally-healthy childhoods around three, research-informed guiding practices.
By nature, practice is every evolving and practicing honors the journey our community is undertaking. Our supportive and inquiring community of CoCreators is actively pursuing scientific and practical knowledge surrounding childhood emotional health that empowers us to take inspired action.
Honor Multifaceted Identities
We believe every child should be celebrated for their unique personality and combination of social identities that influence their experience of the world.
Cocreators embrace how children’s identities shape their everyday lives. Cocreators actively engage with their child’s identities, helping them grasp the meanings behind those identities by exploring history and current events. Cocreators recognize and name identity-based inequalities, prepare their children to navigate discrimination, and empower them to build a more just society—one that embraces all children as much as their caregivers do
Nurture Authentic Relationships
We believe every child benefits from many types of relationships where they experience belonging and learn to show care and sustain a sense of connection and community.
Cocreators encourage children to become caring, thoughtful community members, who reflect on how their actions affect others and the kind of person they choose to be. With Cocreators’ support, children support others in feeling safe and valued, instead of seeking personal power or popularity. Cocreators help children honor and appreciate the importance of every life and the profound impacts we have on each other.
Scaffold Emotional Health
We believe every child is capable of navigating their emotional worlds and learning to foster their own well-being throughout their lives.
Cocreators are critical to scaffolding children’s emotional skills. Cocreators learn about and model emotional skills in their children. At the same time, they communicate to children—through nurturing and emotional validation—that an adult is always “in their corner” when they go through “big” emotions. Finally, cocreators balance active support for children with giving children space to practice and master emotional skills for themselves.
Definition of Emotional Health
Emotional Health is an active process that involves identifying emotions and shaping how we think about and act upon them. Emotional health does not mean feeling good all the time, but rather having the individual skills and community supports to manage challenges, thus enabling a life full of security, stability and purpose.