Short History of Living Values, U.S.

Living Values Education was born when twenty educators from around the world gathered at UNICEF Headquarters in New York City in August 1996 to discuss the needs of children, their experiences of working with values and how educators can integrate values to better prepare students for lifelong learning. The LVE Team in the USA has continued to play an international role in providing training for educators in many countries and generating materials. They also began building a shared body of resources and successful practices.

In 1998, a few teachers in California and Massachusetts, and a School Psychologist in Alaska, began piloting the LVE values activities that had been developed with good results. In 1999, a Professor of Management at Bentley College innovatively engaged college students interested in service learning. Business majors deepened their understanding of personal values, and worked collaboratively with the staff at a near by multicultural elementary school to offer values activities with young students. This service learning resulted in several major transformations of priorities of the college students as well as greater feelings of acceptance by the elementary school students.

Living Values: An Educational Program, Inc., was incorporated in 2000 in the USA, becoming a national non-profit organization which serves as a training and educational corporation. The board of directors is a nonsectarian group of educators and other professionals who envision the future success and happiness of children.

Honors: With the publication of the Living Values Series of five books by Health Communications, Inc., in April 2001, implementation spread. The series was awarded the 2002 Teachers' Choice Award, an award sponsored by Learning magazine, a national publication for teachers and educators in the USA.

Currently, there are active LVEP, Inc., teams in all four corners of the USA: New York, Florida, California and Washington. The first LVEP Educator Training in Seattle was held this August, with 32 educators enjoying the values awareness session, the values activities, creating their vision and fine-tuning their skills.

While on-site trainings are available throughout our country during the year, annual LVEP Educator Trainings are held at Peace Village in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The seventh annual LVEP Educator Training was held in July 2005. This year's LVEP time also included a Train-the-Trainer session and a retreat for educators already implementing LVEP. The retreat was a new event. Titled "The Power of Pure Intention in Education," the retreat focused on rest, renewal, and re-energizing. Educators were asked to reconnect with the pure intention that initially brought them into this filed and explore what allows them to stay connected to their positive core.

Many parents and teachers are using LVEP's Living Values Activities books with children and youth in the USA. Over 20,000 books have been sold! While there are many teachers that use LVEP in their classrooms independently, only a few schools are known to be implementing LVEP school-wide. More than 800 educators have undergone LVEP Educator Training in the USA. Groups of educators are encouraged to collaboratively explore whole school/system implementation.