Northeast Delta Human Services Authority Executive Director Dr. Monteic A. Sizer signs the Al’s Pals agreement with Monroe City Schools.

“This is part of a set of child and adult initiatives that will ultimately improve individuals, families, institutions, and communities,” Dr. Sizer said.

MONROE, La. (PRWEB)
July 01, 2021

Northeast Delta Human Services Authority (NEDHSA) and Monroe City Schools have entered an agreement to facilitate the provision of Al’s Pals: Kids Making Healthy Choices.

There will be 480 students that will be participating in the Al’s Pals program through the following Monroe City Schools for the 2021-2022 academic school year: Barkdull Faulk, Berg Jones, Carver, Clara Hall, Cypress Point, J.S. Clark, Lexington, M.J. Foster, Minnie Ruffin, and R.N. Shelling.

Al’s Pals: Kids Making Healthy Choices is an early childhood curriculum designed to increase social and emotional competencies in young children. The resiliency-based curriculum provides real-life situations that introduce children to health-promoting concepts and build prosocial skills, such as understanding feelings, accepting differences, caring about others, using self-control, and managing anger.

NEDHSA Executive Director Dr. Monteic A. Sizer said the memorandum of understanding complements the agency’s work in other regional school districts and “our desire to curb youth despair and establish hope.”

“This is part of a set of child and adult initiatives that will ultimately improve individuals, families, institutions, and communities,” Dr. Sizer said. “Programs like Al’s Pals offer children solutions and strategies to help overcome early life problems associated with individual, family and community trauma.”

Last week, NEDHSA announced the program’s launch with Delta Head Start pre-kindergarten classrooms located in East Carroll, Madison, and Richland Parishes to bring services to more than 400 students.

Al’s Pals follows the premise that intervening during a child’s formative years will reduce the likelihood of developing negative social and emotional behavioral patterns.

Monroe City Schools School Board Superintendent Dr. Brent Vidrine said early social-emotional skills are “an essential component for school readiness and healthy child development.”

“Now, more than ever, students need social-emotional tools that build their resilience to cope with stressors as they get older,” Dr. Vidrine said. “Monroe City Schools has chosen Al’s Pals as the Pre-K Social-Emotional Learning Curriculum because we understand that focused attention on SEL skills must be addressed during preschool to ensure long-term academic and life success.”

The Al’s Pals program is fully funded through the NEDHSA.

Dr. Sizer said that if these programs aren’t in place, “those negative social determinants and adverse health outcomes will continue to follow the children into adulthood.”

“We’re creating ecosystems to help reduce the early onset of mental illness, drug addiction, violence, suicide, teen pregnancy, school expulsion, to name a few. We are doing this because we know these things are highly correlated with adult poverty, homelessness, high unemployment, and early death,” Dr. Sizer said.

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