Cherry Gulch seeks to provide the best learning environment for our staff, students and the families that we serve. In order to enhance our already physically and emotionally safe learning environment, we have implemented an emotional literacy program that reduces bullying, increases attentiveness in the classroom and creates an emotionally safe learning and living environment for those that we serve. Two of our employees, Ryan Hale LCSW and Kylie Anderson, CRT were sent to Yale University this summer for training in the RULER approach and ways it could assist our program.
The RULER Approach is a comprehensive emotional literacy program that helps to empower and teach individuals to regulate their emotions and find success in their daily endeavors.
Mark Brackett, Ph.D., the co-founder of the RULER Approach has been studying emotional intelligence for his entire professional career and has done over a decade's worth of studies on the program and how it affects classrooms and corporations. RULER teaches the fundamentals for recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing and regulating emotions. The end result has significantly reduced bullying, provided higher test scores, and increased success in personal and professional endeavors.
The Ruler Approach is an outgrowth of decades of research on emotional intelligence conducted by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. This research has proven that emotional skills are integral to personal, social, and academic success. Research supporting the RULER Approach has shown an 11% difference in end of year grades, and a 17% difference in school problems. Hundreds of schools in the United States and abroad have adopted The RULER Approach to successfully integrate social and emotional learning since its' start in 2005, but Cherry Gulch is the first therapeutic school to implement the program. (Sources: Letter from Susan E. Rivers, PhD. Co-Developer of The RULER Approach to Social and Emotional Learning.)