Professional Development Workshops

CHARACTER COUNTS! offers a variety of outstanding professional development workshops. Dynamic CHARACTER COUNTS! trainers deliver each of the following interactive professional development workshops in onsite or virtual format. The Six Pillars of Character (trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship) are the foundation for CHARACTER COUNTS! workshops.

For more information or to receive a quote, contact us at customerservice@charactercounts.org, 515-271-1910, or submit an online training request.

Introduction to
CHARACTER COUNTS! Online Workshop

May 10-11, 2023

The Introduction to CHARACTER COUNTS! Online Workshop presents the fundamentals of CHARACTER COUNTS! This workshop is targeted towards individual educators and administrators who wish to know the basic principles of CHARACTER COUNTS!

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One-Day Workshop: CHARACTER COUNTS! – Setting the Foundation for a Six Pillar Culture

June 8, 2023
The Ray Center, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa

Participants will learn the fundamentals of CHARACTER COUNTS! and engage in hands-on activities that can be transferred into your classroom, school, or organization. This one-day workshop is targeted towards individual educators and administrators interested in learning the best teaching practices of CHARACTER COUNTS!

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Two-Day Workshop: CHARACTER COUNTS! – Implementing a Six Pillar Culture

June 13-14, 2023
The Ray Center, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa

The two-day workshop is a comprehensive professional development training session targeted towards small groups of key decision makers within a school/organization. In addition to learning the fundamentals and best teaching practices, participants will leave with a CHARACTER COUNTS! implementation plan to bring CHARACTER COUNTS! to life in their school or organization.

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Half-Day Workshop: Introduction to
CHARACTER COUNTS!

Shaping the culture of your school or organization and teaching character skills is critical to achieving academic, social-emotional, and citizenship and leadership outcomes. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to CHARACTER COUNTS! and learn how shaping a culture built on Teaching, Enforcing, Advocating, and Modeling (TEAM) the Six Pillars of Character can improve those outcomes for your students.

For initial training sessions, this workshop includes a one-hour online conference call follow-up.

One-Day Workshop: CHARACTER COUNTS! – Setting the Foundation for a Six Pillar Culture

In order to shape culture, we must Teach, Enforce, Advocate, and Model (TEAM) the values we want reflected in our day-to-day actions. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to CHARACTER COUNTS! and learn best practices for Teaching, Enforcing, Advocating, and Modeling the Six Pillars of Character into their lives, schools, and classrooms. In addition, participants will discuss how to implement CHARACTER COUNTS! in their school in order positively impact academic, social-emotional, and citizenship and leadership outcomes.

For initial training sessions, this workshop includes a one-hour online conference call follow-up.

Two-Day Workshop: CHARACTER COUNTS! – Implementing a Six Pillar Culture

The most successful CHARACTER COUNTS! schools create meaningful, measurable, and sustainable character development programs that continually shape the culture of their organization. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to CHARACTER COUNTS! and learn how shaping a culture built on Teaching, Enforcing, Advocating, and Modeling (TEAM) the Six Pillars of Character can improve those outcomes for your students. In addition, participants will learn best practices to teach character to their students, and have an opportunity to create CHARACTER COUNTS! lessons for use in their classrooms. Finally, participants will craft an implementation plan detailing the key steps necessary to become an exemplary CHARACTER COUNTS! school and positively impact academic, social-emotional, and citizenship and leadership outcomes.

For initial training sessions, this workshop includes a one-hour online conference call follow-up.

New Staff Acclimation to a Six Pillar Culture

This workshop is for schools that have been using the CHARACTER COUNTS! framework, but would like to orient new staff to the program. It can also serve as a refresher for existing staff. This session is customizable to incorporate any existing processes and best practices currently used at your school. Participants will learn what CHARACTER COUNTS! is, why character development and culture shaping matter, and how they can Teach, Enforce, Advocate, and Model the Six Pillars of Character.

Available as a half-day or full-day session. The full-day session will also explore teaching best practices, and help participants understand their role in implementing CHARACTER COUNTS!

Character Development
in Early Childhood

Designed for early childhood educators, this workshop explores the skills needed to enhance the social and emotional growth of the early childhood classroom.  Early childhood educators will walk away with tools and strategies to implement a high-quality character development initiative for young children. These resources are easily integrated into the social and emotional curriculum of the early childhood classroom.

At least one Early Childhood kit must be purchased for this training, as the resources contained in the kit will supplement the training. Early Childhood kits may be purchased for $199 per kit.

This topic is available as a half-day or full-day workshop.

Increasing Positive
Parent Engagement

This workshop may be offered for school staff or for parents.

For Staff

Parents are a child’s first and most important character educator. It is important for schools to work more collaboratively with parents in raising children.  This workshop will give educators tools to gain parent’s support towards the school’s efforts to promote good character. It will also include successful engagement activities and strategies on how to deal with challenging parents.

For Parents

This workshop focuses on increasing positive parent engagement in the education of their children.  The workshop equips parents with tools and strategies to use at home to support the school’s CC! efforts. Parents will learn how to encourage and model the Six Pillars of Character at home, especially in challenging situations.  If requested, the parent sessions may also address managing behaviors of at-risk youth.

This topic is available as a two-hour or half-day workshop.

Pursuing Victory With Honor – Building Character Through Sport

Athletics and activities provide an exceptional opportunity to teach students character skills and practice those character skills in a meaningful way.  Character traits like work ethic, teamwork, leadership, and integrity contribute to the short-term success of the athlete and team and the long-term development and success of the individual.

In this workshop, participants will learn tools and strategies to coach the Six Pillars in athletics and activities by turning values into behaviors, as well as develop implementation plans to Teach, Encourage, Advocate, and Model the Six Pillars of Character on their teams. This workshop includes Pursuing Victory With Honor Playbook resources at no additional cost.

This topic is available as a half-day or full-day workshop.

Civility in Communities

A community culture built around the Six Pillars of Character can positively impact community members and encourage civility among citizens. If communities want to work together with civility, then they must promote civil behaviors like seeking to understand, win-win negotiation, and building connections. In this session, participants will learn strategies to shape a culture of civility in their community by demonstrating civility in their own lives and create a personalized civility plan to help guide their actions in challenging situations.

Objectives:

1. Utilize tools and strategies to personally demonstrate civility and shape a culture of civility in the community.
2. Identify key issues in the community that create conflict and incivility.
3. Create a personalized civility plan to enhance your civility in challenging situations.
4. Discuss ways to model civility in order to positively impact the culture and climate of your community.

This topic is available as a two-hour or half-day workshop.

Community Coalition Building

A community’s culture shapes the character and behavior of the individuals living in that community.  Therefore, communities should work to create their community’s culture with intentionality.  In this session, participants will learn how to create a CHARACTER COUNTS! Community Coalition to help build a community culture that reflects the Six Pillars of Character in action.

Objectives:

1. Create a CHARACTER COUNTS! Community Coalition.
2. Learn tools and strategies to shape the culture of the community.
3. Identify key organizations in the community that play a significant role in shaping the community culture.
4. Create a CC! Community Coalition implementation plan designed to shape the culture of your community.

This topic is available as a two-hour or half-day workshop.

Dealing with At-Risk, ADHD, and Other Learning Challenges

This workshop provides an overview of current research and best practices to recognize symptoms and effectively assists students with various behavioral and learning challenges including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD), Anxiety Disorder (ASD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), and other emotional or behavioral challenges.

The workshop will demonstrate and teach the proper use of fidgets, a proven effective strategy to provide sensory input, assist with anxiety, concentration, and the ability to listen and self-soothe.  Also, participants will learn proven Cognitive Behavioral Therapeutic methods to teach youth how to use positive self-talk and dispute cognitive distortions.  Participants will also learn other vital relaxation skills such as deep breathing, positive mental imagery, and progressive muscle relaxation.  Other components included are truancy training, including cultural competency and socioeconomic awareness, and diversity.

This topic is available as a two-hour or half-day workshop.

Stress Management

Stress levels are impacting our educators and students and an increased rate. We offer support through professional development to help schools address these challenges.

Session Overview
Stress is inevitable. It is impossible to remove it from your life completely. Thus, it is critical that we learn and implement strategies to manage the stresses we face. This interactive session emphasizes the new science of stress management with a focus on awareness, mindset, actions, and reflection. Participants will engage with research-based strategies to build their own stress management plan in order to overcome the challenges they face in their own life and as leaders.

This session is available as a 90 minute or half-day workshop. The program can be customized to focus on both Personal Stress Management and/or Team Stress Management.

Customize Your
CHARACTER COUNTS! Training

At CHARACTER COUNTS!, we know that each school is unique has distinct challenges or focus areas.  Whether you are interested in using CHARACTER COUNTS! to combat bullying, or integrating CC! with your PBIS or other SEL program, we can design and deliver customized character education programming to meet your specific needs.