Teacher well-being, a multidimensional concept, can be translated as the teacher's motivation and fulfilment in the face of the professional demands and difficulties they face and how they mobilise resilience strategies and skills to respond to these challenges (Picado, 2011). The issue of teacher well-being, particularly the well-being and mental health of early childhood educators, has been a concern of the scientific community over the last few decades (Benevene et al, 2020; Cumming et al., 2021), and has been the subject of several studies and surveys in various countries, including Portugal. Despite this increase in attention, there is still little research and interventions on well-being aimed specifically at early childhood educators. Consequently, there is very little research on these practices (Gearhatt et al., 2022; Hall-Kenyon et al., 2014), but it does point to interventions based on socio-emotional learning with teachers as promoting their well-being and protecting them from stress (Bonde et al., 2022; Jennings et al., 2017; Keleynikov, 2022). This research aims to expand existing scientific knowledge in this field in Portugal and will be developed through a quantitative and longitudinal study, with the following objectives: (a) to characterise and analyse, throughout the school year, at three key moments, the perceptions of emotional, social and psychological well-being of nursery and pre-school teachers; (b) to characterise and analyse, throughout the school year, at three key moments, the perceptions of emotional regulation of nursery and pre-school teachers; (c) to characterise and analyse, throughout the school year, at three key moments, the perceptions of distress of kindergarten teachers in Portugal; (d) to identify the training needs and interests of kindergarten teachers in the field of well-being, emotional health and stress management; (e) to analyse the associations between the emotional, social and psychological well-being and distress of kindergarten and pre-school teachers, as well as their predictors at a personal and contextual level. Participants in the study will be kindergarten teachers working in nursery or pre-school education, with an estimated sample of 380 kindergarten teachers. Data will be collected online via a questionnaire survey and will take place at three different times during the 2023/24 academic year. The instruments used will be: 1) Sociodemographic and professional questionnaire (to be created specifically for the study); 2) Questionnaire on training interests and needs (to be created specifically for the study); 3) WHO Well-being Index (five) (WHO-5) (Portuguese version by Psychiatric Research Unit, Mental Health Centre North Zealand, Hillerød, Denmark) 4) Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC_SF; Keys, 2009; Portuguese version by Fonte et al, 2019) 5) Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003; Portuguese version by Vaz & Martins, 2008). 6) Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10; Kessler, 2022; Portuguese version by Pereira et al., 2019) The aim of this research is to help characterise this professional group over the course of a school year, in terms of the variables under study: well-being, emotional regulation and distress.

It is also anticipated that the results may point to the identification of interests and training needs of early childhood educators and, consequently, favour the development of training proposals in the fields of well-being, emotional health and/or stress management. These results could represent opportunities for initial and/or ongoing training projects for early childhood educators in these areas, with a view to improving their perceived well-being and mental health. Research outputs include: communications at national (1) and international conferences; publication of articles in national (1) and international (1) journals. This project will allow us to continue the work already carried out in the thesis for the doctoral programme in education, which analysed the well-being, distress, emotional regulation and mindfulness of teachers in Portugal, by proposing to analyse the well-being, distress and emotional regulation of nursery and pre-school teachers. This will make it possible to develop a specific study of these education professionals and report on their reality and specific needs. In this way, it will be possible to strengthen the sample of educators and potentially propose answers to the needs identified, expanding scientific knowledge in these areas.