CASEL Guide to Schoolwide SEL

 

Hello There…

This is Laura Ferrer-Wreder. I am a developmental psychologist. I am working as a participating researcher on the “Samspel och socialt klimat” research project. This is the first time that I have ever contributed to a blog, so welcome me to the year 2019, and the digital world! I have been conducting research with children and adolescents for many years, and an idea that I have become interested in, is to explore what schools already do around social emotional learning or SEL from a school wide standpoint.

The CASEL Guide to Schoolwide SEL

A tool and set of ideas that I am looking into now is the CASEL guide to schoolwide SEL. You can access the guide at this webpage or you can access the guide at: https://schoolguide.casel.org/

Four great takeaways from the CASEL guide….

1. We should attend to the school wide culture around SEL plus use the best SEL programs and practices available.   

• The whole community of a school is absolutely vital. The collaborative work that the CASEL guide calls for involves the whole community of a school. The whole school and all stakeholders are taking part in putting together actions and policy at the school level that aims to support children’s SEL (if one follows the CASEL guide).

• Youth and their voice are part and parcel (i.e., essential) to the CASEL guide and how one would go about strengthening school wide SEL. Youth bring authenticity and irreplaceable insights into the decision-making process of what should be done within a school to strengthen SEL.   

• The CASEL guide also has nifty tools and rubrics to fill out to see where and how to go forward….

For more about research that I and my colleagues are conducting with children and adolescents, please check out the Applied Developmental Science website.