Social-Emotional Support Services for Secondary Students
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Social-emotional practices have unique benefits for secondary students, who face an especially critical social and emotional development period. Incorporate social-emotional support services for secondary students into school culture to provide academic and social support for secondary students.
Advisory group programs and restorative disciplinary practices at contact districts can help students build social-emotional learning (SEL) competencies. In addition, this research provides strategies for gaining faculty and administrative support for SEL.
Effective SEL practices
Incorporating SEL practices at the secondary level provides specific benefits for secondary students entering a critical development period. SEL competencies help students in this age group navigate increasingly complex relationships, both with their friends and with themselves. Secondary-aged students engage in riskier behavior and navigate increasingly complex social challenges (e.g., peer pressure, exposure to social media). In a survey of secondary students conducted by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the majority believed that SEL practices prepare them for careers and college, improve relationships with peers, reduce bullying, and improve absorption of academic content.
Below are five core SEL competencies from CASEL.
Self-awareness
- Identifying emotions
- Accurate self-perception
- Recognizing strengths
- Self-confidence
- Self-efficacy
Self-management
- Impulse control
- Stress management
- Self-discipline
- Self-motivation
- Goal-setting
- Organizational skills
Social awareness
- Perspective-taking
- Empathy
- Appreciating diversity
- Respect for others
Relationship skills
- Communication
- Social engagement
- Relationship-building
- Teamwork
Responsible decision-making
- Identifying problems
- Analyzing situations
- Solving problems
- Evaluating
- Reflecting
- Ethical responsibility
Training stakeholders on SEL practices
Teachers support SEL most readily when new practices operate similarly to existing academic practices that they already understand. Be sure to leverage familiar course structures to ease teachers’ transitions toward SEL practices. This way, teachers do not have to learn both new practices and new structures. Similar to how teachers receive coaching on best practices in delivering academic content, they can also serve as SEL coaches for their peers.
Below is a sample coaching model.
Working with peers
- Teachers request training on SEL practices and meet with SEL coaches during free periods.
- SEL coaches teach faculty strategies to implement SEL in the classroom.
- School administrators arrange coaches’ schedules so that at least one coach is available during each free period.
- Administrators recommend designating at least one department head as an SEL coach, as they often have greater schedule flexibility than typical classroom teachers.
Hiring process
- School administrators nominate early adopter teachers to serve as coaches.
- The district hired five coaches, who receive training from RULER on SEL best practices.
- Hired coaches receive stipends as additional compensation for their work.
Additional responsibilities
- Coaches conduct weekly professional development events around SEL that teachers voluntarily attend.
- The five SEL coaches meet weekly with district administrators and serve as a leadership team for district-level SEL efforts
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