Little Highway Heroes

BEST Programs 4 Kids Pty Ltd

Little Highway Heroes is a social and emotional wellbeing program for students in Early Years education. It uses discussion, interactive activities, role play, puppets, songs and stories to develop a range of skills across the social and emotional learning domains.

Overview

Alignment with Be You Domains

Mentally Healthy Communities
Family Partnerships
Learning Resilience
Early Support
Responding Together

Alignment with Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF)

Not applicable

Alignment with Australian Curriculum

Health and PE

Target audience

Early learning

Target groups

Individual
Small group
Whole class
Whole school

Aims

Little Highway Heroes helps students in Early Education to learn evidence-based social and emotional skills to respond positively and appropriately to the various everyday social, emotional and learning challenges they meet. Each of the twenty lessons incorporate discussion, interactive activities, role play, stories and songs to develop the confidence to apply in the playground, classroom and their community. There is a strong emphasis on learning emotional self-regulation skills with one block of five lessons focused solely on this but also incorporated into the other four blocks of learning.

Program theory

Little Highway Heroes is based on the following theories and frameworks: Drawing on cognitive behavioural therapy, narrative therapy, positive psychology and social learning theory, Little Highway Heroes teaches emotional self-regulation (Emotional Highway), peer relationship skills (Social Highway) and learning persistence (Learning Highway). Each of the twenty fully resourced lessons teaches a concept or a tool that lays the foundational skills for emotional self-regulation, positive peer relationships or learning engagement in a complete, wholistic social and emotional wellbeing curriculum. The nine hand-sized puppets, twenty songs and twenty stories enable students at their developmental level in a fun and engaging way.

Topics

There are four blocks of learning, each comprising five lessons: The Highway of Life metaphor The Social (Playground) Highway The Emotional Highway (self-regulation) The Learning (Classroom) Highway

Cost

There are various options ranging from a Premium Digital Subscription - for three years or one year -comprising both Little Highway Heroes and Highway Heroes (for School Years 1 – 6) plus hard copy versions of both. An online video training suite for staff, a parent video workshop and other accessories are also included depending on the subscription level. All products are also available for individual purchase as either a digital annual subscription or a hard copy version.

Program structure

Little Highway Heroes is developmentally informed with group problem-solving, discussion and role play for key skills. The twenty lessons each has a story and a song to illustrate its skills and concepts. A suite of nine puppets – four boys and four girls plus a character called ‘Sillyness’ - allow for teacher-led and peer-led improvisation and creation of various interpersonal and intrapersonal scenarios.

Instructor

External facilitator

Instructor training

The authors, Helen Davidson and Claire Orange provide both face to face and the online video training.

Supporting resources or materials available with program

Other (please specify)

Other materials

A variety of resources are included with some subscriptions and also available for purchase separately.

Ongoing support

Helen and Claire are based in Western Australia and can provide online or in-person support by arrangement. Information for parents is included in the digital and hard copy versions of Little Highway Heroes; the online video workshop is also available and face to face parent workshops can be arranged in Western Australia.

Parent involvement

Written information provided to parents

Origin of program

Australia

BEST Programs 4 Kids Pty Ltd

Program authors

Helen Davidson and Claire Orange

: 207 Flamborough Street, Doubleview 6018

: +61 410 387 787

: info@bestprograms4kids.com

: Visit website

Ratings

2/4 Evidence

3/4 Implementation

Summary of evidence factors

This is a summary of the evaluation or research study characteristics that contribute to the program’s evidence rating.

Positive impact on at least one outcome for children and/or young people?	Yes
Link between program description and theory of change	Comprehensive
Study design	Pre-post cohort
Independence	None

Summary of implementation factors

This is a summary of the program’s characteristics that contribute to its implementation rating.

Feedback sought from participants	No
Feedback sought from instructors	No
Groups program is not suitable for	Not assessed
Training provided during study	Face to face, all instructors, in person
Ongoing instructor support provided during study	Yes

Context

This is a summary of the context in which the evidence for the program was established.

Study Participants	Early childhood
Country of Study/s	Australia
Location of Study/s in Australia	WA
Evaluation of program in culturally and linguistically diverse populations	Yes
Evaluation of program in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people	Yes
Evaluation of program in low socioeconomic groups	Yes
Developmental based adaptations to program design and delivery	Yes
Evaluation of program in children and young people with disability and/or learning difference	Yes

Last updated: 25 June 2026