Transcript for: Introduction to Social and Emotional Learning
We're really excited to talk today about the foundations of
social and emotional learning. This is an SEL 101. We're going to be talking
about what SEL is and, how we see it promoted throughout
schools and communities. And we'll be also sharing
with you resources for those of you that want
to dig a little deeper. Before we get into the
meat let's start by, thinking a little bit about students or young people who are in our lives. Let's think about a
young person in your life and think about what is it that you hope that they will learn and be
able to do to prepare them for the world tomorrow. So I invite you to add into the chat, a comment or two about
what you would prioritize for the young people in your lives, and what would be most
important to prepare them for the world that they will be living in. Resiliency, I see a lot of compassion. Wow, it's going quickly. Perseverance, empathy,
strong relationships, emotion regulation, a
growth mindset, gratitude. These are all amazing responses. I'm happy to see all of
these things popping in here, and this really does set us up well for what we're going to
be talking about today. Before we get into SEL, just a brief note on who is CASEL. For those of you that are new to CASEL, CASEL's been around for 27 years. We're the Collaborative
for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning. It's a nonpartisan, nonprofit, that defines social and
emotional learning more than 20 years ago. The goal of CASEL's mission
is to really help make sure that SEL is part of
every child's education, pre-K through 12. We do that in a number of different ways. We do that by advancing
the science of SEL, by really looking at
what is the research say about social-emotional
learning and its impact on other outcomes. We also have a practice team which is what I lead, our
practice team to really understand what does SEL look like
in classrooms, in schools, and in districts? We have a policy effort which is where we're
focused on the federal level and most importantly the state level to
create those conditions, within states so that
districts can prioritize SEL. And all of this is done in
collaboration with SEL partners and organizations and
convening folks together to really bring forth the best
research, the best practice, the best policy ideas, so
that we can advance the field. Sometimes people think
that CASEL has a program or a curriculum ourselves. We do not. We're collaborative, and our
goal is to advance the field. So let's take a quick poll
before we get into the SEL and just answer quickly, how familiar are you with
social and emotional learning? So go ahead and answer if
you're extremely familiar, you're a pro, or you're somewhat familiar, moderately familiar,
or not familiar at all. - [Emily] Just going to give
it about five more seconds and then we'll take a look at the results. - All right, so this will
help me to get a sense of who's in our audience and how much time to
spend on different things. Oh, looks like most of
our audience almost half, is moderately familiar, and actually a big chunk of
you are extremely familiar. So, thank you for joining us. And some of you are somewhat familiar and a small percentage or this may be your first opportunity to learn about social
and emotional learning. So we're happy to have
all of you here today. Before I tell you about
CASEL's definition, we are going to actually
hear from a student who can describe for us,
how they understand SEL. - Social-emotional learning to me, provides students with purpose. SEL, was a great foundation
and catalyst for me. It taught me to value education
and value human connection. Well, SEL taught you to
step up when you need to but also step back when you had to. So, you were creating space for yourself but also making space for others. - So this is in the words of a student and we think it's always great
to bring the voice of kids into the conversation. Let's talk about CASEL's definition and how we understand social
and emotional learning. So this actually, this definition
has been updated about, gosh, almost a year ago now. The definition now is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes, to develop healthy identities, to manage their emotions
and achieve personal and collective goals, to feel
and show empathy for others, to establish those positive relationships, and to make good decisions. You all may be familiar
with the research on SEL. And there's a lot of
research on our website that our research team has been
synthesizing and conducting. These are some of the high
level outcomes that we've seen and this has been well-documented, that SEL leads to improved
academic outcomes and behaviors, that SEL benefits are not short-term but they are actually long-term and that we see benefits globally. We know that investing in SEL is a wise financial investment. There's research that suggests that, investment in SEL has an 11
to one return on investment. And we also know that
it's not simply about, outcomes in school but
long-term life outcomes. So, if you're interested
in more about the research, you can learn about the meta-analysis and all the different studies
that have been done on SEL by clicking on this link below which when you receive the slides, this will take you to
where you can learn more about SEL research. When we think about why schools
and districts implement SEL, we've learned that schools
and districts have a number of different priorities
for why they see SEL as a key part of their mission. These are some examples
of the kinds of priorities that school districts, have that they really feel
like their SEL implementation is designed to advance. In some cases, schools are focused on the benefit of SEL to their academic achievement. Others are really focused on college and career
readiness, workforce readiness. We see a growing number
of schools and districts who are understanding that
SEL can play a critical role in their equity work. Obviously mental health
is a key priority across the nation especially in
the wake of the pandemic. And also really understanding
that SEL is foundational to civic learning and civic engagement. These are just a few of
the different priorities that we've seen and we
really do believe that, every school should examine what their local priorities are and what their vision is
for their young people, and then think about
their SEL implementation as part of advancing that mission. So when you think about
these priorities or others that you may have, which of these are you working on when you think about SEL implementation? We'll take another quick
poll to kind of hear from our audience about which
of these or other priorities, your SEL implementation is focused on. So, thanks for clicking in on which of these you feel is for your local context, most relevant. I'm eager to see the results of this poll and love the opportunity to hear directly from you in real time. So go ahead and click
on one of these boxes. And if you selected other, go
ahead and drop in the chat, what your other is. - [Emily] And I'll give
it about five more seconds and then we'll see, what
folks are focusing on. - Ah, mental health with
a strong showing at 76%. I have to say I would have predicted that especially in this day and age. The priority for SEL had
been growing significantly before the pandemic, and we've seen a really sharp increase in the priority for SEL as
a result of the pandemic. So I'm not surprised to
see that mental health is top of mind for so many folks. And we agree with you that
social and emotional learning is a key element to
providing a preventative and positive universal approach to supporting positive mental health. Also about a third of
you are saying academics, is a key priority which we know from research that SEL can have a strong
impact on academics. College and career readiness
is in there at 16%, equity at 31%. So, that is another trend
that we've seen throughout the country over the last several years that our mission for equity we recognize that SEL can play a role there as well. And civic learning is something that's a
little smaller percentage but we'll be talking later about how we'll be
sharing more information about SEL's role in
civic learning next week at our virtual summit. Okay, and in the other category, it looks like many people
have popped into the chat that they are looking
at some other things, climate and culture in
schools, nutrition, education, really looking at physical
and healthy development, responsible thinking and ethics. So lots of ways in which you see priorities
showing up at schools, and how SEL can play an
important role in that. So let's talk for a minute
about what we mean by social and emotional learning. I think probably many of you are familiar with CASEL's wheel. We're going to just take a minute and talk about these competencies. These five competencies are interrelated, and they are critically important and they sort of within
each one there's a number of examples of things that would be, sort of exemplars of that competency. Let's start in this orange
section, with the self. So when we think about self-awareness, we think about how do we understand, who we are, how we feel, what we value, what our
growth mindset might be, what is our sense of
purpose, what matters to me? This is really about how
we understand ourselves and our own thoughts
and beliefs and values. And this is critically important
that we really take time to reflect on who we are. And also in the self-management, this has to do with how we
behave as an individual. How do we manage those emotions? How do we manage stress? How do we manage our impulses? How do we stay focused? How do we have perseverance
in the face of obstacles? How do we stay organized? How do we take initiative? How do we understand that we have power to make a difference? All of this is part of our
sort of self-management, and, you know, understanding who we are, and how we behave given what
we understand about ourselves. So let's next move into the green zone which is where we really
think about others. In social awareness, this is where we really begin to understand how other people
think, how other people feel. Can we read body language? Can we tell how people are feeling? Can we put ourselves in their shoes to really understand their perspective? Can we express gratitude? Can we create an experience, a sense of belonging with others? Do we understand what the social norms and demands are at any given time and what's going on around us? That's all the social awareness. And then of course it's how
do we engage with others, given all of that? So how do we communicate effectively? How do we demonstrate cultural competence? How do we build positive
and healthy relationships? How do we manage conflict? How do we ask for help when we need it? How do we offer help when
we see that others need it? What kind of leadership
we have here and really, are we willing to engage with others and stand up for others when we see that there's a need for that? So the green zone is about
how we understand others and how we engage effectively with them. And then we put that all together to make responsible decisions. So are we being curious to learn more about situations and analyzing
what could be consequences of different decisions? Are we able to solve problems
on our own and together? Are we able to sort of be
ethical in how we behave? Are we able to reflect on my role and what role I can play
in the broader community? That's the responsible decision making. So these are the different
competencies and skills that we know are foundational
to success in schools, success in the workplace,
and success in life. And when we want to promote
these within school, there's a lot of different
ways that we would do that. There are key settings that
are critically important as we think about a systemic approach, to promoting social and
emotional competence. The first and obvious
one is the classroom. Here's where you would find, curriculum that's designed
to teach those skills, you would find opportunities for a positive classroom climate, and ways that we're engaging together. Also within the school, there are opportunities to promote social and emotional competence
throughout the building in terms of how the school climate, and how the adults are
interacting with each other. There are also really important
opportunities as we partner with families and caregivers, to work together, to promote healthy, social and emotional competence
for our young people, and to relate positively
to families and caregivers, and throughout our community. So here's where we would really
want to align our efforts with community partners, and also think about how we can contribute to our communities
through service learning and what have you. And so this model, is CASEL's
model, for school-wide SEL, where we are promoting these social and emotional competencies, within these different environments and we're coordinating the
practices and policies within the different environments
so that we are promoting what we call a systemic approach. But this model is still pretty abstract. And sometimes people ask us, so what does that actually
look like in a school? Here are 10 indicators of school-wide SEL, that really provide more information about what this looks
like within a school. So sometimes people believe, oh, if we're doing SEL in our school that means we're doing
explicit SEL instruction. And we would say, yes,
that is super important, and it's really important
that schools allocate time for explicit instruction in SEL skills, but it's by no means sufficient. So in addition to that SEL
instruction that's explicit, we also know that there
are great opportunities to promote social and
emotional competence, while teaching academic content. So it's not a either or it's a both and. Additionally, we know that it's
important for young people, to have an opportunity to use their voice, to make decisions, to show leadership, within the classroom
and within the school. Also throughout the school, we know it's important that the climate and the culture of the school, is supportive and positive, that the adults themselves have
an opportunity to reflect on and develop their own
social-emotional competence so they can be in healthy
relationships with each other, and with students and model those skills. We know that the discipline
policy can promote social and emotional learning
in restorative ways. If we are careful about how
we structure those policies and provide that support. We also know it's important to provide an integrated support, just like you would for academics, that there are universal tier one supports for social and emotional learning and that there are also opportunities to provide additional support,
for students who need that. I mentioned earlier that
authentic family partnerships is a key part as well as
authentic community partnerships where we are aligned in our mission. And always looking at what
we're doing, and thinking about, are we getting the
results we're looking for and how should we improve
our implementation to achieve those results? So the continuous
improvement process is key. So these are the different sort
of things that you would see in a school that is prioritizing
social-emotional learning. It can be overwhelming to think that we have to do all of these things. Typically CASEL would recommend that schools focus on
certain priorities at a time, not try to do everything at once. And we provide a lot of guidance, free on our website on how to do that. Let's take another poll and just reflect on these 10 indicators, and think about which
of these do you think, is an area of strength? Which is something that you
feel your school or district, is doing well in this moment? And secondly which of these
represents an area of growth? So Emily's going to
launch this question here. So there's two questions here. The first one again is to look at what do you think your school or district, what's relatively speaking,
an area of strength? And relatively speaking, where do you feel like
would be an important area for you to focus for growth? We'll take just a few more minutes. - [Emily] All right, we'll
give it just a few more seconds and then we'll look at the results. - Make sure you see that
there are two questions. You have to scroll down
to get to that second one, which represents an area of
strength relatively speaking and where do you feel like there's great opportunity for growth? Okay, Emily, let's see what we learned. Wow, so this is kind of
all over the board here. I don't know if you all are
able to see the full results but it looks like supportive climate is maybe the most often. It has the most responses
relative to the others and that's at 20%. So, a fifth of you believe
that you have a strong climate which is great. And looks like, in this first one, very few would list
adult SEL as a strength which is interesting to
me because adult SEL, has a lot to do with how we
create a supportive climate. So that's kind of an
interesting finding there. And then let's look at how we
responded on the second one which represents an area of growth. Which we see lots of areas of growth. And again, adult SEL has a lot of folks, 29% saying this is an area of growth. Family partnerships looks
like an area of growth. Actually it looks like
since people were able to select more than one that there's a lot more areas of growth, reported here than strengths. So it looks like we all have work to do. I think what's helpful about
looking at these indicators is recognizing that, you know, a systemic approach to
SEL is not just one thing. There are many different ways
that we can be promoting, our young people's social
and emotional learning, and we don't have to
take all of it on at once but just being aware of the
different areas can be helpful as we think about our work. Okay, so let's move on. We're not going to have time to get into, how you actually do this which is I know what everyone
is really eager to learn. But CASEL does have a number
of resources that are free, and available on our website, that can help you really think about, what are the first steps for getting a systemic
approach to SEL implemented and how do I work with others to do that? Whether you're at a school
level or a district level. On our website, I'm just going to give you
kind of a quick preview of some of the things that you'll
find on our website. If you're at a district level, the district resource
center is extremely valuable as a resource because the
district resource center, gives an overview of how you
do this at a district level, it provides guidance on the different areas of implementation and it also provides
examples from other districts who have already done this. So when we think about the ways to do a systemic implementation
at the district level, for example, one of the key areas is developing a communications
plan for how parents and staff and students will
understand the priority for SEL, rather than starting
from scratch you'll find in the district resource center
templates for doing that, examples from other districts, you'll see strategic plans for example, and you'll see lots of those, you know, SEL 101 presentations that
other districts have given, don't need to reinvent the wheel. So the district resource
center is extremely valuable. And at the school level, there's the guide to school-wide SEL. And that really is
designed to help schools, think about how they can get started with their implementation. There's a rubric if you
want to do a self-assessment that goes through those 10 indicators and you can rate yourself on how deep is your implementation on each of those which can help you lead
to your action plan. And then there's guidance on
how to think about everything from establishing an SEL
team to creating a vision, to how to think about promoting
social-emotional learning for students and a continuous
improvement strategy. So, the guide to school-wide SEL is extremely valuable for schools, who are thinking about how
they approach this work. If you want more than that
guidance on our website, there actually is professional
learning that CASEL offers. Both live and on demand. We have a live session that
will be started in January that's a four-part series
that you can register for. We'll also be launching
an on-demand series if you are not able to make the live time. So there is professional learning that really takes you through, how do we actually do this in our school? If assessment is something
that you're interested in, there is also guidance on how to assess, social and emotional learning, and how to choose an
appropriate measure for that whether you're thinking about
assessing your implementation, or assessing the outcomes
that students might get. You can see the SEL assessment guide. One of the most common
questions that we often hear is, how do I choose a program for social and emotional learning? Again, CASEL does not have a program but CASEL has reviewed
the evidence in the field on how programs have been effective. So the guide to SEL programs is available and that can help you
think through a process for selecting an evidence-based program. We also have the SEL roadmap to reopening which helps schools that are reopening after COVID think about the best way to reopen. By this time I'm hopeful that
all schools have reopened but there's great
guidance in there as well. And then there's also, some really important resources available for parents and thinking about, how they can promote
social-emotional learning, including a recent campaign, to help parents learn more about SEL. So all these resources are
available on our website. If you go to casel.org, you'll see up in the upper
right corner CASEL websites. That's where you're going to
find most of these resources because they're all kind of mini websites within CASEL's website. So with that, I'm actually going to spend
the rest of our time together, just answering your questions. And I'm going to invite my colleague, Justina Schlund to join us, so that we can take some of the questions that have come in and
continue the conversation. - Great, thanks so much
Melissa for that presentation. I think as someone who's
been in the SEL world for a long time, even hearing the definition over and over, I feel like I've learned
something new every time. So let's jump into some
of the questions here. I think you've begun to
answer a few of them. I want to start with one that
we got lots of questions for that were submitted ahead of time and then I'll get to some
that are in the Q and A here. The one that I saw most
frequently that was submitted, was around how do you select, SEL activities, programs, curricula? And you mentioned very
quickly our program guide but I'd love to hear a little bit more and I'm sure our audience
would as well about, what is the right process
for selecting an SEL program? - Yeah, I'm glad that
you asked that question because this is a question that we get, not just all the time for this webinar but over and over again. And, there are some
common pitfalls to avoid. So I think it's important to
spend a little time on this. As I mentioned, CASEL
itself is not a program, but our program review, can
be a really helpful tool. One of the most common
mistakes that we see is when districts adopt a program that doesn't align with
what their priorities are. As you remember in the beginning of the presentation we talked about that, districts and schools
have different priorities for why they would implement
social and emotional learning. So we encourage schools and districts to start with identifying
a team or a committee, that includes a wide
range of perspectives. So, people from the district,
people from the school, teachers, even students, family
members, community partners to serve on that team for selection, and that that team identify
what are the overall priorities, so that you can design a vision and goals for your SEL implementation. Are you focused on climate? Are you focused on mental health? Are you focused on academics? These are really important questions to discuss before selecting a program. Then once you actually have decided what your priorities are, it's important to find a
program that has evidence, that actually addresses
the goals that you have and that matches what your vision is. There's the program
review will help you see, different strengths and
different goals of programs and will also help you look
at what is the evidence. So we also recommend
that you look at programs that have evidence with populations, that are similar to your own. So looking at the evidence,
looking at the programs, looking at the kind of
approach the program has. So, in some cases, people
are looking for, you know, a 30 minute, once a week,
explicit classroom lesson, and others are looking for
more integrated with academics, or maybe both, or maybe something that is integrated at the high school for advisory. So really thinking about what
is the approach that you want for your SEL programming, and making sure you select
a program that matches that. And I would say, you know, narrowing that list to a few
and having some opportunity to have different folks weigh in on a shorter list can be really helpful. Again, I recommend that you
go to CASEL's program guide which is at pg.casel.org, which will take you through
a step-by-step process and you'll be able to have an interactive interface
for selecting programs. - Yeah, thanks for that Melissa. And apologies for the
incorrect link I put in there. I think one of the things, you know, that's so important with what you said, we get a lot of questions
that's, you know, what's the best SEL activity you can do or what's one quick activity? And I just want to
emphasize that we're talking about programs here because, what we've seen is pulling down a single
standalone activity, really isn't necessarily going to be effective with students. And, at CASEL, we're really driven by looking
at what is the evidence, and what is the research
say about the outcomes that we're leading toward? And that's what the program helps us do is really say this is a scope and sequence or a set of activities that have been studied that are
developmentally appropriate. So just really want to emphasize that. - Yeah and actually Justina, I think sometimes people will feel like but what can I do on Monday morning? What are some things I can do immediately? And I would also want to just talk about just some general
structures for class time and meeting time that
can be really helpful. You'll find on our website
and maybe someone can drop the link into the chat of CASEL's
three signature practices, which is a great way to immediately begin to promote positive social
and emotional learning as part of the way in which
you structure lessons, or even the way in which
you structure meeting with other adults. Those three practices include, starting with some
community building activity and it can be, you know, just a couple of minutes
to give opportunities for those in the room to connect, with the others in the
room on a personal level, and really help bringing everybody's voice into the conversation. So, we always begin lessons or even our staff meetings
here with some way to build some community as a start, and then making sure that
the content throughout is engaging and provides opportunities for engagement, reflection, and thinking about how
this information sort of, is relevant for me as an
individual and for us as a group, and always finishing off
with an optimistic closure so that you are prompting young people or even those in your
meeting to think about, what happened here in this space, what does it mean for
what I want to do next? It could be showing some
gratitude or thinking about next steps, but some way to close. So the CASEL's three signature practices is something that you can
implement on Monday morning whether it's at a staff meeting, a grade level meeting,
or with your students. And it's a great way to over time, build engagement and build community which is so important, to
provide for our young people that sense of belonging, that
is foundational to engagement. - Yeah, thanks Melissa. I think that's a resource a lot of people have found really helpful. I want to move now to another question that's coming up a lot
in our Q and A right now around how do you assess SEL? Particularly I think
there's some questions about especially because mental health is such a priority right now, particularly any distinctions
between SEL assessments and mental health screeners. So maybe we can start by just broadly what do we mean by assessing
SEL and how might we do that? - Yeah, this is such an
important and tricky topic. I think that there's a lot
of misconceptions out there about SEL assessment. There's fear that kids will be graded on how much anger they have
or that they'll be, you know, that this is like a permanent record and they'll be sort of pathologized for having certain emotions which is of course not at all
what SEL assessment is about. So, and taking a step back when we talk about assessing
social and emotional learning, there's two different kinds of assessments that people might be thinking about. One is assessing your
actual implementation and that's really, did I do
what I said I was going to do, is my implementation deepening
in an appropriate way? That might be like a rubric or a survey, or even an observation tool. Those implementation
assessments are available on CASEL's website. But I think what you're talking about is the student outcomes. And there are a number of resources that can be helpful here. And I would like to share to kind of what schools are
actually doing to assess, is their social and emotional
learning implementation, actually working and how do we know that? So, many times schools are actually using, school climate surveys, to assess the benefits
of their SEL assessment. I saw a lot of folks in
the chat talk about how SEL is so important for climate. So looking at particular items
on the school climate survey or the overall school climate survey, that can be really helpful to look at. When you look at items like, how are they responding
to, I feel like I belong, I feel like my teacher knows me, I feel like I have friends here in school? Like these are all indicators that social-emotional learning work that you're doing is improving. So I would definitely encourage
school climate surveys, to be an important part
of how we're assessing if the work we're doing is working and I would also say looking at that data, not just with the whole staff but also with students to problem solve around what are some things
that we can do to improve, school climate items is a
great way to engage youth in that discussion. When we look at actually
measuring students' own social and emotional competence, we do provide an SEL assessment guide, that identifies different
assessment tools, so that you can see staff surveys, student surveys, performance assessments, all different kinds of assessments. But again, we don't think of
social and emotional learning, as a way to assess mental health, or a way to sort of screen
for mental health issues. Social and emotional
assessments are really designed to be formative and to
help us think about, how do we want to prioritize
our implementation and our instruction, for
our class or for our school, not do we want this
student to be pulled out and go into a small group. That's not really the way we would recommend
using SEL assessments. There are mental health assessments, that I think schools and
districts already have access to that would be important
for them to look at, if they're really worried
about mental health issues, but social and emotional learning, and mental health are not the same thing. We know that, a strong social and emotional
learning implementation, can be an important preventative measure so that less folks feel
the effects of trauma or feel the effects of
issues that they're having. But they're not the same thing. Also, other indicators of improvement in your social and emotional
learning improvements, might even just be like attendance, right? Like even just looking at, do we see more kids attending to school? That's a sign that kids want to be there. Or, do we see fewer incidents of conflict? That's a sign that kids are improving in their conflict management. And of course academic performance is another way to get a sense of it. Justina, what would you add to that about the mental health connection? - Yeah, I mean, I just
want to emphasize one piece about SEL assessments and
SEL in general, right? Is that we are really looking from a strength-based perspective. So one reason I think Melissa's talking about sort of looking across trends that you might have for schools and classrooms for implementation. Another reason to do SEL assessment, is really to lift up students'
strengths and say, you know, I might be struggling in
math or I might be struggling in these other areas, but you know, I've been really developing strengths around relationship building, around social awareness, things like that. And I think that's
important to distinguish. And then I think the mental
health screeners, right, like are really intended to
serve a different purpose to say, when students need some
extra mental health supports or interventions, here is
how we'll do those things. And all of that should be
aligned to the overall principles of SEL like relationship
building, like skills development, but they're sort of important. They're important to separate those, especially in terms of assessment. I want to, is sort of transition
us to another question that we're getting up
frequently in the Q and A, around adult SEL. I think we've talked a lot
about student SEL here, and our framework and our
definition we've said over and over applies to both young people and adults throughout their lives. So how would you suggest
that folks here think about, how to promote adult SEL? - Such an important question. And I think especially right now, our teachers and our district
office folks are experiencing, a lot of stress, and focusing on adult SEL has
never been more important. And we know that from research, that when we can improve the adult social and emotional learning, that it improves their stress levels, it improves their job satisfaction, it improves, you know, the rates of teacher turnover and burnout. So there's lots of benefits to focusing on the adult's own social
and emotional learning, that not only help those adults, but it has a direct impact
on the young people, who are in their midst. So highly stressed adults are adults who are having a difficult time coping, that is felt by the students. So there's a couple of different ways that we think about building adult SEL. Obviously professional
learning is key to that. We know that in professional learning, we want to provide opportunities
to help teachers teach SEL but also to reflect on their own social and emotional learning skills, and help them think
about what are the areas that they feel strong in, what are the areas that
they want to improve in, what are some strategies for self-care, what are some opportunities to practice collaborative problem solving or conflict management? Really thinking about professional
learning opportunities that help adults, work through some of
those skill development and do some self reflection. And also, when they improve in their social-emotional learning, they're also obviously
going to be modeling that. And so being really intentional and sort of reflective on
the fact that how I respond is modeling what I want
for my young people to see and to learn. So it's a really important piece. In addition to really helping
adults build their own skills, we have to provide adults
with the opportunity to build community with each other. We know that strong relationships at work can be extremely
helpful especially during times of high stress. We know that strong and
positive relationships is one of the most important
mitigators against, the effects of trauma and
stress for our adults. We want to create that community where our adults feel valued, supported, and that they have a voice
in the kinds of decisions that are being made. So creating the structures and
the opportunities for adults to have genuine connection
with each other. And this kind of goes back to
the three signature practices, that giving adults structures where they are building community is so very, very important, and giving adults opportunities where they can weigh in on decisions, is really helpful for them to feel valued and empowered as well. So, that community
building is so important. So, building adults own
capacity and skills, building the community of
relationships among adults and of course also making
sure that the adults have the skills they need to
build strong relationships with students themselves. All of this is critically important, so that they feel healthy,
they feel supported, and that they're in
authentic relationships with the other adults, with the young people, and
with their families as well. All of that is key for
promoting adult SEL. There's a lot of resources on our website in CASEL's school guide. You'll see that in our
model for systemic SEL, we have an entire focus area on adult social and emotional
competence, development, and relationship building. - Thanks, Melissa, I know this is just one of the most frequent things that we've heard from
our district partners is this importance of paying
attention to adult SEL. And what I think is so interesting is like all the things that we say are important for students, that relationship building, that sense of safety and
belonging and care right, is also important for adults because SEL is this lifelong process. So we've linked to a few
resources in the chat that you can probe into a little bit more. Also, one of the questions that
I'm saying from some folks, is around different types
of community partnerships, different types of folks who are working in out
of school time spaces, including things like mentorship programs, after school programs, things like that, how can they best use SEL,
in those types of spaces and apply the CASEL framework there? - Yeah, I think it's a great question. And this is something we've
been actually researching here in CASEL as you know, about how to more
effectively align our work with our community partners, especially those out of
school time partners. And there's some important
learnings that we have from the research there and
from our experience that, it's really important to
establish relationships with those organizations and invite them into the conversation. We mentioned earlier about
the importance of an SEL team, and having representation
from community partners, can be really helpful so
that everyone is aligned on the mission and they feel
like they have contributed to the mission and the local priorities. So, establishing relationships with them and having regular ongoing conversations is critically important. And when we are using a similar language for how we are interacting
with our young people and when we have a common goal, that can be really helpful as well. So earlier I mentioned the
three signature practices that we often see in our schools, sort of the connect building community, the engaging content,
the optimistic closure, having those same structures
go across these spaces, creates predictability
for the young people in addition to promoting social
and emotional competence. So, even just aligning on some of these really simple strategies so that there is a similar language and similar strategies
throughout can be really helpful. I think that, you know,
making sure again that, there's professional learning that can go, where we're inviting
our out of school time or community partners into those spaces, and that we are also
pushing into their spaces. The goal is that we recognize that we are all working
together on a similar vision, on the same goal, and that we want our young
people to feel supported. And it's helpful for them
too to recognize that, these people all know each other. When I'm here in school and then I go to the Y
afterwards for out of school time that there's some
connection and bridge there and that there's some shared experience and these adults are working together. In our CASEL guide to school-wide SEL, there are a number of tools
that are specifically designed for this purpose. And I think someone's going
to drop the link in the chat that shows like how can OST providers, support the SEL implementation and how can we make sure
we include them in that? - Great, thanks so much Melissa. We've talked a little bit about sort of this mental health connection,
the trauma connection. I think there's a lot of interest, from folks around how to build that integration a little bit more, including how there's
trauma-informed schools and if they're already focused
on trauma-informed schools, if they're already focused
on mental health work, how to create that alignment, sort of similar to some
of these questions. I'm wondering if you can expand
on that a little bit more. - Yeah, I think it's
an important question. I'm glad we're going to revisit this issue 'cause it can be confusing. And while SEL and mental
health are not the same thing, social and emotional, learning can promote
positive mental health in a lot of different ways. The most important way I believe is by promoting responsive relationships. So that includes the
relationships among children and young people. It includes the relationships
between the adults, and the students. Those supportive, authentic,
caring relationships, are again, one of the most
strongest sort of buffers against the effects of trauma,
and the effects of stress. So, really focusing on
relationships is key. And how do we engage in
healthy relationships? Well that requires
self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and
relationship skills obviously. So promoting social-emotional learning and making sure that we have, the skills that we need to engage in healthy relationships
is really important. Creating environments where we as adults and our young people especially feel safe, and they feel like they belong, and they feel like they are known, and they feel like we are
all sort of in this together and this is safe space for me, is so critically important, if we want to address the effects of trauma and mental health. So, making sure that we cultivate
those protective factors is really important. We want to make sure that
SEL is part of a system of mental wellness supports, so that we are really
including promoting SEL which can help with prevention. But there are going to also be times for intervention and treatment. And that's when you have young people who really need additional supports. So making sure that we are doing our
social-emotional learning as a universal tier one
support for everyone, but that there are tier two
and tier three supports, that integrate SEL but also provide additional
mental health supports for kids who need that,
is critically important. We've seen that our schools and districts have benefited a lot from, community partners and
wraparound services, that can be really helpful in those tier two, tier three supports, so that our young people
have what they need. What would you add to that Justina? - Just two things. One is I'm going to drop a link into the chat up for a
toolkit on MTSS and SEL. I think a lot of people are
using multi-tiered systems of support to think about
the layered supports, and wondering how SEL
fits into that system. And we did work with a number of partners to develop a toolkit that
will go into more detail. The other thing I just want to say broadly is I think one of the
things that we see often is that when people are
trying to implement SEL, be it in a school, or
district or community, there's already so many other programs, there's already so many other priorities that are going on, right? You may have already
been implementing lots of different things that are
getting at student wellness and student wellbeing and success. And so one of the first steps that we always recommend that folks do, is to pause for a second, take inventory of
everything that's going on, and say, how does this
align to my overall goals for what do I want for students? So sort of that first question
that Melissa began, right? Thinking about what is our
vision for student success, and how do all these different programs and initiatives connect? I think it's really important. And I'm going to drop another
link into the chat here on just the needs and resources assessment that might be helpful particularly if you're working at a district level, on some of these issues. - Yeah, I think that's such a good point because people often talk about, it feels overwhelming, I have too much on my plate,
I can't add one more thing. And often it really
requires not an addition of one more thing but a sort of reframing and
reorganizing of the work that's already happening, to sort of towards to the common goal, because generally speaking, schools and districts whether
they're calling it SEL or not, are already doing, work that we would consider, promoting social and emotional learning whether it's a climate initiative
or restorative practices, or they have advisory, or they have different types of things, sorry about that, that are promoting social
and emotional learning, that is really helpful
to take stock of that and then build on that. - Absolutely, and I think
we have time probably for just one more question
before we wrap up. I think there are some
parents who are joining us and there are some
folks who are joining us who have concerns about
how to speak with parents. There are folks who are joining us, who are talking about
how do I integrate SEL with family partnerships? So wondering if you could
speak a little bit to, family partnerships sort of
from a few different angles, how the school's work with families, how might families advocate for SEL, how might districts
communicate with parents who are unfamiliar with SEL? - Yeah, and I think it's a
really important question and we know that more and
more parents are recognizing the importance of social
and emotional learning and want to advocate
for it in their schools. There's a lot of resources
on CASEL's website that has guidance for parents, on how to be thinking about that. There's a couple of key things. As a parent myself, one thing I would encourage
parents to do is to learn about what are the existing
efforts that are happening in the school and community? Is SEL being prioritized? Is there an SEL committee? Is there work that you can get involved in and volunteer in just
learning about what SEL work is already happening? And also, recognizing that
there's opportunities for parents to be talking with the school and also with each other about social
and emotional learning. CASEL has a discussion series
for adults that is parent led, and parent run, for the parents in the community to be talking with each
other about issues related to social and emotional learning. So for example, how do we manage stress at home
and how do we stay connected as our kids become teenagers
and are pulling away and how do we cope when
there is trauma or, you know, issues happening in the community? So there's some discussion
groups that parents can lead and engage in that are on our website. Also, I would say, that we want to make
sure that if parents want to advocate for SEL, you can speak to local education leaders about why you think SEL is important and should be prioritized. On CASEL's website we have
a PowerPoint that's called Making the Case for SEL. That PowerPoint has some slides on some of the most powerful research
on the benefits of SEL. So there's some tools there as well. And also reaching out to your
local PTA can be helpful. There is some national PTA
work around advocating for SEL. So, that can be a helpful resource. There's also some national
organizations like SEL for U.S., that are national advocacy
groups that are really trying to make sure that the
parents' voices are heard, around the priority for
social-emotional learning. - Great, thanks Melissa. And I know some of the
questions and concerns that are coming in are
also about how to speak to parents about SEL, particularly in areas
where there might be, politically charged
conversations going on. And so I think we'll make sure
to send out some resources as a follow-up, around how to
clarify what SEL actually is which I think there's some confusion and part of the reason
we're doing this webinar, and how to really make the case for SEL with different groups. So we'll share some of those resources. Thanks so much Melissa for taking the time today and
for all these great answers.