PSYC09003 2022 Contemporary Psychology for Leadership & Advocacy in ECEC

This module introduces students to concepts from Contemporary Psychology. Students on the MA in Leadership and Advocacy programme examine the science of wellbeing, resilience, flourishing, and emotional intelligence under the umbrella of the Positive Psychology movement.  Students explore how this knowledge can be utilised to enhance their effectiveness as leaders & advocates in ECEC, support their team and optimise resilience of children in their services. The module focuses on both developing students understanding of theoretical principles and application to augment their skills and competencies in their leadership roles.

Remediating deficits and managing disabilities has been a central preoccupation for clinical psychologists. Positive Psychology, in contrast, is concerned with the enhancement of happiness and well-being, involving the scientific study of the role of personal strengths and positive social systems in the promotion of optimal wellbeing. Alan Carr's Positive Psychology has become essential reading for anyone requiring a thorough and accessible introduction to the field. This new edition retains all the features that made the first edition so popular, including: accounts of major theories and relevant research learning objectives chapter summaries research and personal development questions suggestions for further reading measures for use in research glossaries of new terms. The book has also been completely updated to take account of recent research and major advances, and includes a new chapter on Positive Psychotherapy, an extended account of research on character strengths and virtues, and a discussion of recent ground-breaking research on emotional intelligence. This new edition of Positive Psychology will prove a valuable resource for psychology students and lecturers, as well as those involved in postgraduate training in related areas such as clinical psychology, social work, counselling and psychotherapy.

In the face of increasing levels of depression affecting American children, a new edition of the best-selling guide to preventing childhood depression shows parents and educators how to instill optimism, resilience, and confidence in children, enabling them to feel self-reliant, boost self-esteem, and perform better in school. Reprint.

Help prepare the children and teens in your life to face life's challenges with grace and grit. In this award-winning guide author and pediatrician Dr. Ken Ginsburg shares his 7 crucial Cs: competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control. You'll discover how to incorporate these concepts into your parenting style and communication strategies, thereby strengthening your connection. And that connection will position you to guide your child to bounce back from life's challenges and forge a meaningful and successful life. You'll also learn detailed coping strategies to help children and teenagers deal with the stresses of academic pressure, media messages, peer pressure, and family tension. These approaches will prepare children to thrive and make it less likely that they will turn to risky quick fixes and haphazard solutions. Resilience is a critical life skill. And it can be taught! Learn how with Building Resilience in Children and Teens.

THE LIFE-CHANGING BESTSELLER. MINDFULNESS reveals a set of simple yet powerful practices that can be incorporated into daily life to help break the cycle of unhappiness, stress, anxiety and mental exhaustion and promote genuine joie de vivre. It's the kind of happiness that gets into your bones. It seeps into everything you do and helps you meet the worst that life can throw at you with new courage. The book is based on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). MBCT revolves around a straightforward form of mindfulness meditation which takes just a few minutes a day for the full benefits to be revealed. MBCT has been clinically proven to be at least as effective as drugs for depression and it is recommended by the UK's National Institute of Clinical Excellence - in other words, it works. More importantly it also works for people who are not depressed but who are struggling to keep up with the constant demands of the modern world. MINDFULNESS focuses on promoting joy and peace rather than banishing unhappiness. It's precisely focused to help ordinary people boost their happiness and confidence levels whilst also reducing anxiety, stress and irritability.

We have long been taught that emotions should be felt and expressed in carefully controlled ways, and then only in certain environments and at certain times. This is especially true when at work, particularly when managing others. It is considered terribly unprofessional to express emotion while on the job, and many of us believe that our biggest mistakes and regrets are due to our reactions at those times when our emotions get the better of us. David R. Caruso and Peter Salovey believe that this view of emotion is not correct. The emotion centers of the brain, they argue, are not relegated to a secondary place in our thinking and reasoning, but instead are an integral part of what it means to think, reason, and to be intelligent. In The Emotionally Intelligent Manager, they show that emotion is not just important, but absolutely necessary for us to make good decisions, take action to solve problems, cope with change, and succeed. The authors detail a practical four-part hierarchy of emotional skills: identifying emotions, using emotions to facilitate thinking, understanding emotions, and managing emotionsand show how we can measure, learn, and develop each skill and employ them in an integrated way to solve our most difficult work-related problems.

Additional readings will be recommended in class and updated frequently.

• British Journal of Developmental Psychology 
• Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 

Psychological Society of Ireland -www.psychologicalsociety.ie

American Psychological Association- www.APA.org

British Psychological Society- www.bps.org.uk

Royal College of Psychiatrists-www.repsych.ac.uk

https://first5.gov.ie

https://www.aistearsiolta.ie

https://www.earlychildhoodireland.ie

https://www.barnardos.ie

Https://www.tusla.ie

https://www.nurturing skills.ie

As a 10 credit module, the total student independent effort hours for this module are 6 hours per week.