Students Who Have Experienced a Crisis
Handout to help teachers respond to students who may need support after a crisis.
Learning & Instruction
We Don’t “Move on” from Grief. We Move Forward with it.
This video is helpful to use when talking about grief with high school students. Writer and podcaster Nora McInerny shares wisdom about life and death. Her candid approach to something that will affect us all, she encourages us to shift how we approach grief. “A grieving person is going to laugh again and smile again,” she says. “They’re going to move forward. But that doesn’t mean that they’ve moved on.”
We Don’t “Move on” from Grief. We Move Forward with it. Read More »
Understanding Trauma
This video explores the effects of trauma on children, highlighting signs such as emotional distress, behavioral changes, and relationship difficulties, while emphasizing the importance of recognizing these signs and providing a supportive, safe environment for healing.
Reimaginando del Apoyo a la Salud Mental de los Migrantes
Curso para proveedores no de salud mental, como personal de refugios y promotores de salud, enfocado en estrategias universales.
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Creating Identity-Safe Schools and Classrooms
This research report addresses the ways in which practitioners can build inclusive and affirming school environments with keen attention to identity safety that can support all students in feeling safe, protected, and valued in school environments. A growing body of research points to effective school-based practices and structures, described below, that educators can use to foster the identity safety that nurtures student achievement, positive attachments to school, and a genuine sense of belonging and membership for each student.
Hexagon Tool for Evidence-Based Practices
Hexagon Tool is a tool for selecting Evidence-Based Practices during the Exploration Stage; earn how to identify the need for organization as well and root cause of that need, determine potential options and their relevant information, evaluate the fit and feasibility of the options, and finally to use the information gathered during the hexagon process to inform implementation planning.
Principals’ Social & Emotional Competence: a Key Factor in Creating Caring Schools
School principals have substantial impacts on many aspects of their schools, including school climate and culture, teacher well-being and retention, and students’ school success. As such, the personal and professional development of principals is a key element in creating a caring school in which adults and children feel welcomed, cared for, and challenged. It is now recognized that principals experience substantial job-related stress which can compromise their personal well-being as well as their leadership. Surprisingly, the social and emotional development and well-being of principals has received little attention.
This brief provides a conceptual model of the Prosocial School Leader, which has two components. The first is the principal’s own social and emotional competence (SEC) and the ability to handle stress and model caring and culturally competent behaviors with staff and students. The second component is an enhanced model of leadership in which principals are the prosocial leaders whose responsibility is to ensure that all staff, students, parents, and community members feel safe, cared for, respected, and valued. Principals’ SECs, well-being, and leadership form the foundation that influences the effective implementation of social and emotional learning (SEL), school climate, teacher functioning and well-being, family and community partnerships, and downstream student outcomes.
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Choosing Trauma Informed Care for Children with Intellectual Disabilities
We live in a world where all children can experience challenges with their mental health, including those caused by trauma. We know all children can heal after trauma; this includes children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Sometimes recovery from trauma requires partnership with child- and family-focused mental health care providers. Caregivers play a large and important role in their child’s treatment and recovery, so having information about what help is critical. It might be time to seek help from a mental health provider if a child has experienced trauma, or you notice concerning changes in your child’s behavior or mood that suggest a traumatic experience may have occurred. For more information on that, check out Understanding Trauma Responses in Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and When to Seek Help. This is especially the case if these changes leave caregivers feeling overwhelmed.
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CASEL’s SEL Framework
Learn more about CASEL’S framework, known to many as the “CASEL wheel,” that helps cultivate skills and environments that advance students’ learning and development. This framework creates a foundation for applying evidence-based SEL strategies to your school community.
Transformative SEL
“Transformative SEL” is a form of SEL implementation where young people and adults build strong, respectful, and lasting relationships to engage in co-learning. It facilitates critical examination of individual and contextual factors that contribute to inequities and collaborative solutions that lead to personal, community, and societal well-being. Through SEL, students and adults develop social and emotional skills needed for school and community engagement, with a focus on rights and responsibilities for creating learning environments that are caring and just.