Sub-project 1 provides the conceptual framework for sub-projects 2 to 5, focusing on the culturally sensitive adaptation and expansion of the PW-PBS-based "Pyramid Model" to include further specific aspects from sub-projects 2 to 5, with the aim of evaluating the effectiveness of the culturally adapted and expanded framework concept of the "Pyramid Model" with regard to organisational, process and personnel development.

The focus of sub-project 2 is on investigating the effects of the adapted and expanded "Pyramid Model" on the development of children's emotional and social skills. Alongside language skills, emotional and social skills play a decisive role in the further development of pre-school children, their successful transition to school, their future educational opportunities and their participation in society. As various US studies have demonstrated positive effects on the emotional and social development of children in connection with the successful implementation of PW-PBS (on which the "Pyramid Model" is based) in preschool educational institutions, this sub-project aims to investigate whether these positive effects can also be replicated for the implementation of a culturally sensitive adapted "Pyramid Model" in preschool educational institutions in Germany.

Language skills are seen as the key to social participation. Educational professionals have the important but also challenging task of competently supporting and guiding all children in their language acquisition. At the same time, language is a complex subject that is closely linked to other areas of development.

The aim of this sub-project is to investigate the connections between language and social-emotional skills in pre-school children. Furthermore, the development, implementation and evaluation of further qualification measures in the field of everyday integrated language support within the framework of the "Pyramid Model" is planned.

This sub-project is primarily dedicated to recording the development of precursor skills in the areas of written language acquisition and maths. Although the adapted "Pyramid Model" does not provide for the direct promotion of precursor skills in these two areas, empirical research results from the USA will be used to investigate whether a cross-institutional framework concept such as the adapted "Pyramid Model" and the further development of daycare centres (as indirect effects) also have a positive influence on children's development in these areas and thus provide better conditions for school development.

This sub-project focuses on educational professionals and their co-operation and diversity skills. The promotion and development of these are evaluated, among other things, depending on the implementation quality of the adapted and expanded "Pyramid Model", which is based on a PW-PBS framework concept.

In Lower Saxony, there are more and more centres for children aged 3 to school age that work in an integrative way. In total, around a third of daycare centres in Lower Saxony currently offer inclusive places.
The focus of the online survey is therefore on representative research into diversity in daycare centres in Lower Saxony and the professional handling of this. The cross-sectional survey aims to gain insights into early education work in the context of diversity (key topics include: Workload as well as work satisfaction, attitudes, co-operation, training needs).
The standardised questionnaires consist of a mixture of validated and self-constructed items and scales. Selected questions were tested in cognitive interviews with a sample of early childhood education staff. In addition, a pilot phase took place in which the entire DivKids PBS questionnaire was tested in online format.

For all potential participants:
All early childhood educators and managers from daycare centres in the state of Lower Saxony who work with children aged 3 to school age can take part. There are two versions of the survey - one for early childhood educators and one for centre managers.
It takes about 25 minutes to complete the survey. As part of the survey, participants have the opportunity to take part in a DivKids PBS competition, in which they can gain access to the online training programme and win one of 10 material boxes on the topic of diversity.
Participation is of course voluntary and anonymous.
Please send us an email if you work in a daycare centre in Lower Saxony, have not yet received a link and would like to take part in our survey.

Another aim of the DivKids-PBS research project is to support the professional handling of diversity by designing and providing corresponding digital learning units for early childhood educators as part of an online training programme.
The twelve learning units are based on a pedagogical framework from the USA called "Program-Wide Positive Behaviour Support" (PW-PBS; Carr et al, 2002) and the multi-level prevention model based on it, the "Pyramid Model" (Fox, Dunlap, Hemmeter, Joseph & Strain, 2003). This was adapted to the current situation of child day care centres in Germany and supplemented with additional aspects. The training units address, among other things, evidence-based measures for universal prevention and include daycare centre and group-wide support measures for needs-based support for children, for successful co-operation between early childhood education staff and for co-operation with parents and guardians.
The online training programme consists of twelve 90-minute learning units that can be completed individually by the participants. Contents of the training include

- a basic introduction to the DivKids PBS concept

- Identification of current individual challenges in the participants' day-to-day life at the daycare centre

- Development of possible strategies for dealing professionally with challenges

- Creating an environment that promotes development

- Strategies for building positive relationships with all those involved in the daycare centre

- Designing interactions that promote language development

- diversity-conscious behaviour

- quality of co-operation.

The practical phases are also an essential part of the training programme, in which participants can implement and reflect on effective strategies in their day-to-day work as part of transfer tasks, including with the help of checklists.