Hempfield to pilot Lego-based therapy program at 2 elementaries

Two Hempfield Area elementary schools will pilot a Lego-based therapy program this school year.

Carnegie Mellon University partnered with a Western Pennsylvania nonprofit called Matt’s Maker Space to bring the Brick Club program to the region’s schools.

The concept comes from Play Included, a company based in Cambridge, England, that uses the colorful bricks to help neurodivergent learners develop social and emotional skills.

Deputy Superintendent Emily Sanders, hired by the district this summer, is one of about 100 educators in Western Pennsylvania certified to facilitate the Brick Club program — and one of just four with the second level of certification.

The program typically certifies guidance counselors and special education teachers to help small groups of students build a Lego set with each other, Sanders said. The students meet once a week in 30- to 45-minute sessions for about two to three months.

Though the program was originally created to help neurodivergent students, Sanders has seen Brick Club help students who are new to a district or struggling with social interactions following the covid-19 pandemic.

“You’re so used to being home alone with dogs and family, and that’s it,” Sanders said. “And then you’re forced back into the way (things were) pre-covid. And you’re like, ‘There’s all these people and I don’t know what to do, and I’m a little overwhelmed with that.’ ”

Students’ relationships to technology may also be impacting their social skills, Assistant Superintendent Matthew Conner said.

“When you look at … the recent phenomena of going to technology and how students today are going away from child-based play and going to this technology-driven, phone-based (world), this (program) should help that,” he said. “The need (for) this is even more pressing than — I would argue — back in 2014 when it started.”

Nonprofit supports nearly 60 local maker spaces

Sanders has been involved with Matt’s Maker Space for about 10 years.

The Hempfield Area School Board on Monday approved an agreement with Matt’s Maker Space, which will allow Sanders to continue her work with the nonprofit, in addition to leading the district as deputy superintendent.

“On occasion, a limited number of in-person sessions or meetings/workshops may need to take place during the school day to allow direct engagement with teachers and students,” read an agreement letter the nonprofit sent to the district.

The nonprofit started in 2016, placing maker spaces in each of Mt. Lebanon School District’s elementary schools by the 2017-18 academic year. Since then, it has donated 58 maker spaces throughout Western Pennsylvania — to public schools, libraries, hospitals and local colleges such as Point Park University.

Each maker space costs about $20,000, said Sanders, the nonprofit’s director of outreach and professional development. Architects from the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh design each space.

The nonprofit was co-founded by Noelle Conover, whose son Matt died from cancer in 2002 at age 12.

“She felt like her son was a tinkerer, for lack of a better word,” Hempfield Area Superintendent Mark Holtzman said, “and this was an opportunity for her to give back to the schools.”

Sanders partnered with the nonprofit during her previous employment at New Castle Area and Beaver Area school districts, which received maker spaces.

She would like to bring a maker space to Hempfield.

In the meantime, the nonprofit donated $8,000 for the district to start Brick Club programs at its Maxwell and West Hempfield elementary schools.

The funding will support training for teachers and administrators to run the program and equipment purchases, Sanders said — including Legos, tables and storage containers.

Lego program helps students ‘figure out their words’

Throughout the program, students take turns working in one of three roles, she said — the builder, who puts the bricks together; the supplier, who picks the appropriate Lego bricks; and the engineer, who reads the instructions and guides the build.

“They have to figure out their words and their descriptions and the size of a brick,” she said. “There’s a language to it.”

The teachers facilitating the program observe the students’ behavior and initiate conversations as needed, Sanders said.

“Once you get to know your kids a little bit, you can start to (identify), ‘Oh, we need to work on patience with this group,’ ” she said, “so then we would talk about patience and, ‘How could we be more patient with each other?’ ”

In just two years of facilitating Brick Club, Sanders is confident in its impact.

“These kids might not have talked in the hallway,” she said, “but they’re sitting around this table and they want to finish this Lego build.”