Wellness Starts With Understanding Your Emotions

Mission

Palau is working to strengthen mental health support for children and young people in schools and across the country Schools are an important setting for this work because they can help students build emotional skills early and connect them with support when needed. This effort is done in partnership with the Republic of Palau Ministry of Health and Human Services, educators, and community partners.

The Heart Curriculum is designed to help students better understand their emotions, manage stress, support others, and know when to ask for help.

The Theory Behind the Heart Curriculum

The Heart Curriculum is grounded in research on social and emotional learning, emotional intelligence, emotion awareness, emotion regulation, coping, perspective-taking, resilience, and child and adolescent development. Across these areas of research, there is strong support for helping young people build skills to understand emotions, respond to stress, navigate relationships, and seek support. These skills can be taught and practiced in schools, particularly when instruction is active, developmentally appropriate, and supported by teachers and the wider school environment (Oberle & Schonert-Reichl, 2017; Shi & Cheung, 2024).

The curriculum does not rely on a single psychological theory or commercial program. Instead, it brings together several established areas of research and translates them into a framework designed for students in Palau.

A Curriculum Developed for Palau

The Heart Curriculum builds on this regional experience while adapting the approach for Palau. The curriculum uses Palauan language, values, family life, and community context to shape the lessons and activities. The idea of the heart, or reng, provides a shared way to talk about emotions. Students learn to recognize what they are feeling, notice how emotions may show up in the body, practice healthy ways to respond, and identify when additional support may be needed.

Social and Emotional Learning and Emotional Intelligence

Social and emotional learning, or SEL, focuses on skills such as recognizing and managing emotions, understanding other people, building relationships, making thoughtful decisions, and asking for help. Emotional intelligence research similarly emphasizes abilities related to recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotions (Hoffmann et al., 2020; Oberle & Schonert-Reichl, 2017).

These ideas form a foundation of the Heart Curriculum. Students build emotional vocabulary, learn to notice changes in how they feel, practice recognizing emotional clues in themselves and others, and develop strategies for responding to different situations.

Research also suggests that effective SEL involves more than giving students information. Skills need to be taught clearly, practiced, and supported by the adults and environments around students. Teacher social-emotional skills may also contribute to the effectiveness of SEL programs (Shi & Cheung, 2024). Research on the RULER approach similarly shows the value of combining student skill-building with teacher development and supportive classroom environments (Hoffmann et al., 2020; Rivers et al., 2013).

For this reason, the Heart Curriculum includes resources and training for teachers as well as lessons for students.

What Is Emotional Quotient?

Emotional Quotient, often called emotional intelligence or EQ, refers to the skills we use to understand and respond to emotions. That includes noticing what we are feeling, recognizing how emotions can affect our body and behavior, and choosing healthy ways to respond.

EQ also shapes how we relate to others. It can help us listen with care, avoid making assumptions, support someone who may be having a hard time, and know when to ask for help.

These skills can grow with practice. The Heart Curriculum helps students build them through age-appropriate activities, examples, and conversations.