About Steady Session

What Steady Session is

Steady Session publishes programme materials for primary schools, and plans to train facilitators from after the first pilot. It doesn't run the programmes in schools itself. The first programme is Emotion Explorers, where children in Years 5 and 6 practise noticing feelings, naming them precisely and choosing a helpful next step.

Emotion Explorers is an educational programme. Steady Session offers no psychological services, and the programme doesn't replace professional support. The materials may be used only by a licensed organisation, through its trained facilitators, under the Emotion Explorers Usage Licence.

Training facilitators

Steady Session plans to train facilitators from after the first pilot. Training isn't offered yet. If you'd like to hear when it opens, use the contact form.

Emotion Explorers is currently a pilot programme, and during this first pilot I facilitate every session myself.

Who I am

I'm Jakob Shanks. I'm a chaplain with a Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology) and a Bachelor of Behavioural Science (Psychology) (Honours), and I hold a Working with Children card and an NDIS Worker Screening card. I write the Steady Session programmes, and I plan to train facilitators from after the first pilot.

I built Emotion Explorers because children often have one word, like mad, for a lot of different feelings, and a closer word makes the next step easier to choose.

What I value

My goal is to help children build their social and emotional intelligence, so they grow into confident adults.

Five things guide how I work with children, and what I ask of every facilitator:

  • I listen before I speak. Children deserve to be heard before they're told anything, and that includes the quiet ones.
  • I'm patient and gentle when I correct. A calm reply settles a hard moment better than a raised voice, and a child who gets something wrong gets another go.
  • I tell the truth, kindly. I'm straight with children, schools and families about what this programme can and can't do, and about what I don't know.
  • I give fresh starts. Everyone has hard days. A rough week doesn't define a child, and each session starts clean.
  • I look out for the child who finds it hardest. The child who struggles most to find the words gets the most patience, not the least.