On Thursday 10 September 2026, Happy Kids Academy announced the rollout of its resilience training programme to nearly 550 Cycle 3 primary school pupils across nine communes in the Echternach region during the 2026/27 school year.
The programme, delivered by the Luxembourg-based Société d’Impact Sociétal (SIS) with the support of Fondation André Losch, will focus on promoting children’s physical, psychological and socio-emotional health. It will involve pupils from more than 30 classes, aiming to help children develop the skills they need to protect their wellbeing and navigate life’s challenges.
According to Happy Kids Academy, Echternach is the first region in Luxembourg to introduce the programme across a public Regional Directorate of Fundamental Education.
The initiative coincides with the gradual introduction of Luxembourg’s "plan d’études" (new curriculum) in the 2026/27 school year, which places personal development and pupils’ wellbeing among its core educational objectives.
In the Echternach region, these objectives will be incorporated into classroom activities designed to help children understand the relationship between their thoughts, emotions and actions. Based on the principle that resilience is a skill that can be learned, the programme will use playful, evidence-informed educational materials to teach pupils to identify difficult emotions, recognise exaggerated thoughts, examine situations before reaching conclusions and place setbacks in a broader perspective.
The programme is aimed at children aged eight to eleven, ahead of their transition into adolescence. Happy Kids Academy cited the 2022 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study in Luxembourg, which indicated a particularly marked decline in life satisfaction between the ages of eleven and thirteen, especially among girls. The study also found that 20.8% of adolescents aged eleven to eighteen were at increased risk of depression.
Happy Kids Academy added that its own initial assessments found that 50.4% of the children assessed showed low levels of protective resilience factors. The programme aims to strengthen these factors at an earlier age and provide children with practical tools for dealing with mistakes, worries, conflicts, disappointments and uncertainty.
The curriculum draws on principles from Positive Psychology research and has been adapted to Luxembourg’s multilingual school environment. It combines classroom sessions and educational materials with a development pathway through which education professionals can progressively implement the programme more independently.
Romaine Theisen, Director of the Regional Directorate of Fundamental Education, said: “For us, promoting resilience is an important investment in children’s mental health. It strengthens their psychological resilience and gives them the confidence and skills to face challenges with courage and self-belief.”
The programme is intended to provide a longer-term educational framework rather than a one-off intervention, allowing teachers to continue using its language and exercises after the formal sessions have ended. It uses six child-friendly “Resilience Superpowers” to turn resilience concepts into activities that can be practised in the classroom and later applied at home.
Luanna Eroles, founder of Happy Kids Academy, said: “Children cannot always choose what happens to them. But they can learn to choose the story they tell themselves about it. In that story, their inner voice can be the hero or the villain. And each child can learn to influence who wins in the end. Because where our thoughts go, our heart follows.”
Happy Kids Academy noted that it is currently discussing with other regional education directorates in Luxembourg interested in introducing groups of the resilience programme in the future. Private schools can also request information or express their interest.
During Luxembourg’s Mental Health Weeks, taking place from Monday 5 to Saturday 17 October 2026, Happy Kids Academy will offer free resilience training sessions for parents in several languages. Free introductory training for families is also available via the organisation’s YouTube channel.
For more information, visit happy-kids.lu/programs/resilience. Those interested in school or partnership opportunities can contact Happy Kids Academy via email: hello@happy-kids.lu.
