How to Prioritize Social and Emotional Learning & Increase Mental Health Supports in Schools

By Catherine Patterson-Sterling, PhD, RCC

Social and emotional learning in schools has gained momentum as well as priority across the United States and Canada with significant milestones which will be outlined below, but the work to support educational equity, inclusion, school safety, mental health supports, and student future preparedness, along with social as well as emotional capacity building for students has only just started.

A Quick Review of Some Social Emotional Learning Implementation Milestones

1.     Illinois Educators and policymakers (2003) advanced the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Act which was the first legislation in the country calling for the development of social and emotional competence in learning standards.

2.     The development of the CASEL (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) with five competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.

3.     Oregon State Standards for Educator Preparation ensures training in social and emotional development to promote equity.

4.     Delaware’s BRIDGE project developed tools to align social and emotional competencies with work-based learning standards giving students communication, ethical decision-making, and collaboration skills.

5.     Kansas embedded SEL in the Kansans Can Vision which focused on SEL within career and technical education so that students could further explore occupational identities as well as career trajectories.

6.     Ontario Ministry of Education focus and implementation of six competencies to promote social and emotional learning along with the PPM169 policy and vision for supporting student mental health.

7.     British Columbia Ministry of Education focus on the core competencies of communication, thinking, and personal/social across student subjects with students reflecting on their progress as well as growth and development in these areas.

Why Prioritize Social and Emotional Learning in Schools?

May school districts across the United States and Canada have prioritized social and emotional learning in schools because of the increased need for mental health supports, contributions to a safe school climate, as well as student capacity growth in self-regulation, resiliency, problem-solving, identity achievement, and future-focused planning.

The Challenge Of Concentrated Focus

One challenge with social and emotional learning implementation in schools is that the approach has often been a philosophy or a framework without actual resources or service delivery.

In other words, do students just grow in these areas with exposure to social and emotional learning values or can they skill build with targeted interventions in these areas that are integrated across subject areas?

Skill Building and Targeted Interventions in Social and Emotional Learning

One such way of skill building while creating targeted interventions is with the new program “Twenty” created by Catherine Patterson-Sterling, PhD, RCC (teacher and counsellor of over 20 years in Elementary as well as High School) who designed over 60+ modules supporting 20 indicators of healthy youth. Students are able to journey with six animated characters at “urschool” who struggle with similar issues of belonging, identity, screen time overload, social relationships and more. Students are able to watch engaging videos of these characters and skill build by solving the characters’ challenges in particular social and emotional areas while also engaging in interactive quizzes and reflection exercises with ready-made materials all integrated into a learning management system with teachers utilizing their own free copy or as students have their own individual login accounts. Such a program has broad-reach, instant implementation, and affordable scalability.

For more information and to access your Free Teacher Copy visit: https://www.softskillstrainingcenter.com

This site also includes school-wide or even district-wide infographic implementation plans for quick reference and use amongst educators.

About The Writer:

Catherine Patterson-Sterling, PhD, RCC is an educator of 20+ years with diverse experience in all levels of elementary, high school, and post secondary education as a teacher, counsellor, and clinical supervisor. With extensive experience in research and counselling, she understands the impact as well as sources of disengagement as well as chronic absenteeism on learners at all levels. She is also the creator of this new innovative program “Twenty” sponsored by Soft Skills Training Center and Patterson-Sterling Consulting and Counselling Services.