Westmead Feelings Program 1: Teacher Materials

Westmead Feelings Program 1 (WFP 1) is an evidence-based clinical intervention package developed by The Children's Hospital at Westmead and designed specifically to teach emotional and social skills to children with autism spectrum disorder and mild intellectual disability.

As ‘emotion coaches’ at school, teachers have a central role in helping their students to better understand their feelings, and to develop their ability to manage their responses to not-so-good feelings.

WFP 1 sessions for teachers will enrich their understanding of students’ emotions (through recognising their body signs, language and behavior), and will allow teachers to assist their student in developing the language to label their own and others’ feelings.

In creating a supportive environment that promotes safe sharing of emotional experiences, teachers can scaffold their students’ ability to understand emotions, their problem-solving and perspective-taking skills, and their ability to manage emotions. Sharing WFP 1 skills and strategies with students can lead to measurable improvements in emotional and social skills and wellbeing, in the classroom, the playground and beyond.

The WFP 1 Teacher Materials include:

• a Teacher Handbook, with weekly updates on what students are learning in their feelings group, and ways teachers can support them as their emotion coach at school
• A4 and pocket-sized sets of Feelings Strength Bars, describing different intensities of happy, sad, worried and angry feelings, to help students understand that there are various intensities of emotion and to prompt conversations about emotions
• a set of reusable problem-solving, perspective-taking, combined and Feelings Control Kit worksheets, to help students solve problems and develop empathy for the people around them.

Each teacher requires their own set of teacher materials.