RIRO Content and Delivery

Designed to reach young children under the age of eight years, Reaching IN...Reaching OUTᴼᴹ (RIRO) Resiliency Skills Training Programme works by laying a strong foundation of thinking and coping skills that support resilience in the adults who care for and work with them. RIRO teaches "3Rs of Resilience"– skills to help Relax, Reflect and Respond effectively to life's challenges.

The resiliency skills help adults and children develop several critical abilities associated with resilience:

• being in charge of our emotions
• controlling our impulses
• analyzing the cause of problems
• empathizing with others
• believing in our competence
• maintaining realistic optimism
• reaching out to others and opportunities.

RIRO Resiliency Skills Training Programme gives child care and early learning staff and service providers skills and theory to support a relationship-based reflective practice and provides a framework for creating a "culture of resilience" in programmes serving young children.

Training Content

RIRO Skills Training Programme is delivered by authorized RIRO Trainers through non-profit organizations in communities in Canada and elsewhere. This 12-hour skills training is adaptable to different scheduling options based on your organizational or individual training needs. 

Part 1 helps adults build their own foundation of the critical resiliency abilities described above. Participants learn resiliency skills they can model with children and families. Specifically, they learn to:

• identify and strengthen critical abilities associated with resilience
• use strategies to stay calm and focused in stressful times
• identify how their thoughts can affect their ability to cope with stress and challenges
• challenge thinking habits that hinder resilience
• generate alternative ways to handle conflict, problems and stress.

Part 2 helps participants learn to apply the skills with children. They learn to:

• model the skills and foster resilience in the children around them
• use their own resiliency skills to increase their understanding of children's behavior
• incorporate resiliency skills into their work setting by using child-friendly approaches such as children's literature, puppets, and play-based activities.

Who should attend?

Since 2002, RIRO's Resiliency Skills Training Programme has been delivered with positive results to more than 10,000 service providers. Participants have come from sectors like child care and early learning, education, community health, mental health as well as military and newcomer services.

How to Access RIRO Skills Training Programme

If you are interested in taking the RIRO 12-hour Resiliency Skills Training Programme for child care and early learning staff, or for service providers working with young children under the age of eight, please complete the RIRO Training Waitlist Request Form to have your name added to our waitlist. 

RIRO Training Waitlist Request Form

For all other training inquiries or to arrange an onsite RIRO resiliency skills training for your organization, please contact us at RIRO@wellington.ca.

^OM Official Mark of the Corporation of the County of Wellington