The Toolbox Curriculum was developed over eight years while Mark Collin was a counselor in a rural school district in Northern California.  In his words, “the children were struggling with many personal and family challenges, in addition to the usual struggles of growing up. They had no tools to recognize and name their feelings and deal with them constructively.”

Together the kids, with Mark’s guidance, began to identify and tap into their own inner capacities and strengths, their natural resilience.  Mark used the metaphor of a personal toolbox and the symbols of real tools that translated easily into the idea of inner tools.  The children got it immediately and loved it.  They identified and named the 12 Tools together.  Over many years, Toolbox became a written curriculum and was implemented in more school districts. Each school taught Mark more about ways to help teachers and students to be kind and empathetic towards one another as well as using the Tools for their own personal empowerment.

In 2006 Mark formed a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, The Toolbox Project.  The name was changed to Dovetail Learning in 2010, with Toolbox as the flagship curriculum program; and the current mission was adopted.  In 2010, in partnership with WestEd and with the support of the Stuart Foundation in San Francisco, we completely revised and published our current, 5^th edition of the Toolbox Curriculum.  As part of that project WestEd also conducted our first quantitative research on the impact of Toolbox.

As an organization we are young but our vision is large, and the roots of Toolbox are deep.  We are committed to bringing this work to children everywhere.  The social and emotional skills Toolbox provides are vital if children are to reach their highest potential of personal and academic achievement and become the next generation of productive, engaged citizens and community leaders.