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What does it look like when a whole community decides to start with the adults? Ready to Grow St. Joe set out to answer that question across public, Catholic, and bilingual early childhood programs in St. Joseph County, Indiana. Below is the story of the first year of their initiative, “Nurturing Resilience and Building Brains” with Conscious Discipline. At the end, you’ll find a video where early educators and leaders share in their own words what changed in their centers, homes, their programs, and themselves.
In its first year, Ready to Grow St. Joe brought 131 programs and 864 early educators into a single culture shift that swept through the county. The work reached 8,313 children in its first 15 months, and it is on track toward a goal of 10,000 children by May 2029. We’re thrilled to help celebrate with them and share their story.
In most communities, public schools, Catholic schools, and English- and Spanish-language childcare programs rarely intersect. They use different training models, coaching structures, and even languages for how adults regulate and respond to stress and conflict. But they all have one very important thing in common: an investment in little minds and little bodies, and a belief that this kind of investment can shape a community.
That belief informed and propelled the work of Ready to Grow St. Joe, an early childhood coalition in St. Joseph County, Indiana, that supports independently operated early childhood programs. Instead of treating early childhood as one separate program among many, the coalition treats it as the place where nearly every part of the community already intersects. Its leaders believe that if you start at the foundations of development, you can establish a culture that affects everyone.
It seems they were on to something.
On July 31, 2025, Ready to Grow St. Joe launched Nurturing Resilience and Building Brains, a multi-year initiative with Conscious Discipline. It serves children from birth to age eight in English- and Spanish-speaking centers and home-based programs across the county. From the very beginning, equitable access was a focus: 20 of the 41 Year 1 training sessions were offered in Spanish.
Director Terri Kosik, M.S.Ed., brought 45 years as an administrator to the role. Her vision was rooted in culture first. Public, Catholic, and bilingual programs needed a shared language and relationship-centered practice so that both children and the adults caring for them would experience something that reached them all. Connection and conversation were built into how the work spread, rather than relying on a one-time training event.
Like early childhood programs everywhere, these centers faced turnover, burnout, and adults trying to stay regulated under stress without much support. A community needs assessment identified a clear priority: strengthening social-emotional learning support for early educators and program leaders, so they could better support young children and families; including the children who struggle most. That finding shaped the decision to partner with Conscious Discipline and connect it with TIPS-ECHO.
The multi-year investment from the Asante and Valinhos Foundations reflects a shared understanding and commitment to the concept that meaningful community transformation requires time, sustained professional learning, coaching, and strong partnerships. Together, the foundations and Ready to Grow St. Joe are committed to thoughtful implementation, ongoing evaluation, and building the community capacity needed for lasting change.
Kosik’s team believed community change required capable, regulated adults, not another curriculum. That matched Conscious Discipline’s adult-first, brain-based approach.
The partnership combines training, sustained coaching, and reflective practice. Conscious Discipline Certified Instructors Angela Fraley and Lety Valero lead the training and coaching, and Success Partner Heidi White guides the overall plan. Valero leads the Spanish-language work, ensuring bilingual providers receive the same depth of support as English-speaking programs. For children with the greatest needs, a parallel mental health consultation partnership through TIPS-ECHO with The Lourie Center gives classrooms aligned access to a child psychologist alongside Conscious Discipline implementation.
“Everything has been what was promised. Relationship-centered. Research-based. Adult-first.”
Terri Kosik, M.S.Ed., Director, Ready to Grow St. Joe
The coalition’s July 2026 Year 1 Final Report shows how far the work reached:
Coaching sustained the learning after training ended. Leaders met across 32 Admin Cohort virtual coaching sessions, and early educators gathered for five Heart to Heart evenings to share classroom rituals like Wish Wells and Kindness Gardens. The “School to Heart, Home” family resource was adapted for local use, and program leaders who first relied on Conscious Discipline staff to run parent sessions now lead them on their own, building a sustainable leadership model into the infrastructure.
The clearest result is cultural transformation. In a July 2026 Conscious Discipline self-assessment completed by 84 respondents in the Ready to Grow St. Joe community, 99% said they feel a sense of belonging in their school community always or often, and 99% said school leadership models self-regulation and conflict management always or often.
Respondents also describe Composure as a skill they can apply, not just define. 76% say it is easy or mostly easy to calm down when triggered, and 92% keep a calm, clear, confident tone when helping children resolve conflict. Between 86% and 98% endorse Conscious Discipline’s core principles, including that connection supports healthy behavior (98%) and that conflict is communication for a call for help rather than disrespect.
That shows up in the programs, too. Every respondent reports the benefit of offering children choices, a core Conscious Discipline skill that builds willpower and cooperation by giving children a sense of agency within safe limits. Instead of “Sit down now,” a child might hear, “You can sit on the carpet or in the chair. Which will you choose?”
Early educators are also changing how they encourage children. 87% say they describe what they notice instead of relying on extrinsic praise like “good job,” and 87% celebrate small wins with children. An early educator might say, “You held the door so your friends could come in. That was helpful!” This kind of noticing helps children see their own capabilities, connects their actions to how those actions affect others, and builds intrinsic motivation instead of dependence on adult approval. Together, these everyday language shifts show that the training isn’t staying in workshops. It’s changing how adults and children interact from moment to moment.
“Conscious Discipline has made such a difference in my classroom and has reinvigorated my love for teaching young children.”
Participating educator, Year 1 Final Report
When respondents were asked what would most improve their practice, 45% said help with specific strategies and 29% asked for time to practice.
Kosik heard the same thing in conversation: a six-hour training delivers a lot of information at once. Early educators weren’t asking to be convinced. They were asking to be coached, and to connect with people who support them in a sustainable model that keeps fostering community and leadership development. That’s exactly what a partnership with Conscious Discipline provides.
“It takes courage to go first. They didn’t only go first, but first with fidelity.”
Terri Kosik, M.S.Ed., Director, Ready to Grow St. Joe
In Year 2, Ready to Grow St. Joe is helping other communities learn from its journey. Fourteen local early childhood leaders, including Kosik and 13 Facilitators in Training, attended Elevate Conscious Discipline, the annual national conference, in October 2026. There, Kosik and Success Partner Heidi White co-presented the breakout session “What It Looks Like When a Whole Community Commits to Change.” During Year 1, community members also attended Conscious Discipline Institutes, with 8 participants in Orlando and 7 in Madison.
The breakout session centered on the “F” in Conscious Discipline’s S.A.F.E. framework, Foster Community, and on how belonging, connection, and co-regulation create the conditions for resilience and healthy brain development. Kosik and White shared practical strategies, implementation insights, and system-level lessons from bringing public, Catholic, and bilingual programs together around one shared language.
The early educators and leaders doing this work in St. Joseph County learned alongside peers from other programs and saw their own story help others imagine what becomes possible when adults regulate, connect, and model safety for children.
Year 2 shifts from building capacity to deepening practice. More than 308 early educators and leaders attended August professional development on co-regulation, Baby Doll Circle Time™, and the 5 Steps of Self-Regulation. Coaching now goes deeper into one or two strategies at a time, aimed at the pressures early educators named most: behavior disruptions (88%) and stress and overwhelm (56%).
The foundation for the long term is also in place. Two more Facilitator in Training cohorts join in 2026–27, bringing the total to four, which builds local capacity to sustain the work beyond grant funding. Heart to Heart continues as a bimonthly focus group, in English led by Angela Fraley and in Spanish led by Lety Valero, with a training certificate for each session. Conscious Discipline is now an approved vendor for the Ready to Grow St. Joe Quality Improvement Grant, sponsored by the City of South Bend and the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County. PBS Michiana also featured the initiative on its Education Counts series in September 2026, and the episode is available on RTG St. Joe’s YouTube channel.
“One of the most important lessons from our community’s experience is that lasting change requires more than training. It takes sustained relationships, intentional practice, coaching, reflection, and frequent opportunities to reconnect, learn together, and grow.”
Terri Kosik, M.S.Ed., Director, Ready to Grow St. Joe
Watch early educators and leaders from Ready to Grow St. Joe share what this work has meant to them: [VIDEO LINK]
Read more about how the initiative is powerfully impacting the community by accessing the Case Study on our Early Childhood page: https://www.consciousdiscipline.com/early-childhood
Start the conversation with our team about building a connected, self-regulated culture from early childhood by reaching out directly: [email protected]
