This Study Aims to Evaluate the Cultural Adaptation, Implementation, and Effectiveness of the RAISE Program Grounded in Malti's 3 E's Model and the Kindness Developmental Paradigm in Portugal

Empathy Education

Empathy, emotional development, Teacher, behavioral problems

Child mental health has become a pressing global concern, with 13-20% of children and adolescents presenting mental disorders and about half of adult disorders emerging before age 18. Socioemotional development - encompassing emotion regulation, self-empathy, and empathy for others - is considered a cornerstone of mental health and a key protective factor. Although primary caregivers are central to fostering these competencies, educators also play a decisive role once children enter preschool, while being themselves particularly vulnerable to burnout, with consequences for classroom climate and child outcomes. Integrated programs that simultaneously support children's development and adults' socioemotional competencies are therefore needed, yet remain scarce in Portugal. This study aims to evaluate the cultural adaptation, implementation, and effectiveness of the RAISE program (Research and Practice Partnership: Building Awareness and Increasing Social-Emotional Capacity in the Early Years), developed in Canada and grounded in Malti's 3 E's model and the Kindness developmental paradigm. A Randomized Controlled Trial will be conducted with approximately 100 educators from public and private institutions, randomly allocated to an intervention or waitlist control group. RAISE is delivered online over three weeks, combining asynchronous videos and synchronous group sessions across three modules. Assessments at pre-intervention, post-intervention, and follow-up will use multi-informant measures, including the DASS-21, SDQ, and SERT. Data will be analyzed through mixed ANOVA models following intention-to-treat principles. Findings are expected to inform the feasibility and cultural relevance of integrated, prevention-oriented socioemotional programs and to contribute to early childhood mental health promotion in Portugal.

Child mental health has become one of the most pressing public health concerns worldwide. It is estimated that between 13% and 20% of children and adolescents present some form of mental disorder, such as anxiety or depression, and approximately half of adult mental disorders begin before the age of 18 . These figures underscore the importance of promoting psychological well-being from early childhood and of identifying domains that play a protective role for mental health. Among these, socioemotional development has been described as the foundation of mental health, integrating emotional and social competencies that are fundamental for recognizing and self-regulating emotions, constructing identity, establishing positive interpersonal relationships, supporting learning, and making responsible decisions . Among the theoretical models seeking to explain the development of these competencies, Malti's framework organizes socioemotional development around three components - the 3 E's: Emotion Regulation, Self-Empathy, and Empathy for Others. Emotion regulation, the first of these components, refers to the human capacity to control the occurrence, intensity, and expression of internal states in order to achieve goals and develop morally appropriate behaviors , involving both adaptive strategies (e.g., cognitive reappraisal) and maladaptive strategies (e.g., rumination, suppression) . Emotion regulation develops across the lifespan, initially supported by processes of hetero- and co-regulation with attachment figures and progressively internalized into self-regulatory skills, particularly between the ages of 3 and 4. Empathy, in turn, constitutes a central indicator of socioemotional development and unfolds across three dimensions - affective, cognitive, and behavioral - whose emergence begins in the first months of life and becomes progressively more complex throughout childhood . Although primary caregivers play a central role in the development of these competencies , as children gain autonomy and enter preschool education, their relational world expands beyond the family context . From this ecological perspective, educators and teachers emerge as authentic agents with a decisive role in promoting children's socioemotional competencies . At the same time, the socioemotional competencies of these professionals themselves shape classroom climate and children's development . Yet the complexity of the profession and continuous exposure to emotional demands make educators and teachers particularly vulnerable to burnout and exhaustion - the so-called "burnout cascade" with direct implications for their well-being and for the quality of their interactions with children . Considered jointly, these lines of evidence converge on the need for socioemotional learning programs that adopt an integrated approach - one that fosters children's development while simultaneously supporting the socioemotional competencies and well-being of caregivers and educators, and that addresses protective and risk factors for mental health. It is within this framework that the RAISE program (Research and Practice Partnership: Building Awareness and Increasing Social-Emotional Capacity in the Early Years) emerges, developed at the Centre for Child Development, Mental Health, and Policy (Canada), and grounded in Malti's E's model and in the developmental paradigm of Kindness . The program targets caregivers and education professionals working with children aged 3 to 8 and is organized into three modules - socioemotional development, early relationships (the 3 C's: connection, caring, and coaching), and developmental indicators such as well-being and stress - articulating three core pillars: knowledge, practice, and routine . In Portugal, the scarcity of structured programs aimed at promoting socioemotional competencies among education professionals makes the cultural adaptation and evaluation of RAISE particularly relevant. The present study therefore aims to evaluate the adaptation, implementation, and effectiveness of the program in the Portuguese context, examining its impact on (i) professionals' knowledge and practices, (ii) professionals' mental health, (iii) children's socioemotional competencies, and (iv) children's mental health, as well as (v) the associations between these variables. It is hypothesized that professionals and children allocated to the intervention group will show significantly greater improvements in these indicators over time compared to those in the control group.

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