Teaching SEL Twice: What a School Social Work Intern Program Taught Me About Adult Learners

Key Points

• For social workers in schools, SEL is more than leading activities like naming feelings through a feelings chart or learning to cope with breathing exercises.
• In addition, SEL is something they must live and model.
• Hear from an elementary school social worker and field supervisor for a social work intern program about how adult training can offer a way for social workers to truly embody SEL in their work and lives.

When most people think about social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools, they picture children learning to name their feelings through a feelings chart, practicing coping strategies with breathing techniques, or navigating friendships using restorative conversations. In my former work as an elementary school social worker and field supervisor for a social work intern program in a public school district in New Jersey, SEL was absolutely that, but it was also something more.

I supervised a large cohort of master of social work (MSW) and bachelor of social work (BSW) interns who came into our buildings eager to support K-5 students. They learned quickly that SEL was not just something they taught. It was something they lived.

And it was something I modeled. 

What I’ve learned through supervising emerging social workers is that SEL happens twice: once in the counseling sessions they facilitated with children, and again in the supervision space where together we examined their own emotions, biases, and identities. Those moments, often quiet and reflective, are where the deepest learning happened. 

The First SEL: Supporting Children With Big Feelings

One of our students—let’s call her Alice—came to an intern one afternoon feeling overwhelmed by a peer conflict. Alice was young, but she carried emotions with the weight of someone far older. The intern sat with her, grounding the conversation in self-awareness and social awareness: What are you feeling? Where is it showing up in your body? What happened that made you feel this way?

These are familiar SEL moves. But what mattered most was the intern’s ability to sit in empathy, regulate themself as Alice exhibited dysregulation, and hold the space without rushing to fix. When Alice returned to class with more stability, the intern felt confident and proud.

What the intern did not yet fully grasp, though, was that the work didn’t begin or end with the child.

It began with them.

The Second SEL: How Adult Learning Mirrors SEL for Children

In supervision later that week, I asked the intern a simple question:

“How did you feel in that moment?”

She hesitated, as most of my adult learners have when asked this question.

Interns learn early that recognizing a child’s emotions is one thing. Naming their own, especially in moments where they feel unsure, activated, or inadequate, is far more complex. But this is where SEL becomes a developmental experience for adults.

In our weekly individual and group supervision, we used these experiences as an opportunity to weave reflection into every conversation:

What assumptions were you holding during this session?
Where did you feel pulled to rescue instead of explore?
What identities, yours or the student’s, were influencing what you noticed or missed?
What did this moment teach you about the kind of social worker you are becoming?

These questions were not incidental. They were part of an intentional framework I’ve shaped over years of practice, one that blends SEL competencies, cultural humility, and social work ethics into every interaction. I often told interns that SEL isn’t only to follow a specific curriculum. It’s a way of relating to students, to families, and to themselves.

When interns practice slowing down, noticing their internal landscape, and sitting in complexity without judgment, they begin to understand SEL as a living practice. And when they can identify their own emotional patterns, they become more present, grounded social workers for the children they are working with.

Cultural Humility as a Core SEL Skill

Another intern once shared a case involving a student whose cultural background differed greatly from their own. The intern was unsure how to interpret a family communication style that felt abrupt and unfamiliar. Rather than jumping to a technical intervention, we explored a different question:

“How is your lens shaping what you’re interpreting?”

This moment invited the intern to practice cultural humility, acknowledging what they did not know, challenging implicit assumptions, and leaning into curiosity.

Cultural humility is often discussed in social work, but I see it as inherently tied to SEL.

It strengthens social awareness. It deepens relationship skills. It supports ethical, equitable decision-making.

When adult learners embrace cultural humility as part of their SEL development, they become practitioners who can build trust across lines of race, culture, language, and lived experience. And the children notice.

Supervision as an SEL Laboratory

What made our social work intern program unique is that supervision was not merely procedural. It was an SEL laboratory, a place where interns brought their questions, their discomfort, their hopes, and their mistakes. Instead of teaching interns to perfect their sessions, together we worked on perfecting their self-awareness.

A few supervision strategies we routinely use include:

• Reflective prompts that helped interns examine their internal responses
• Equity-centered case discussions that surfaced bias and systemic context
• Intentional supervision dialogues that modeled vulnerability, repair, and relational accountability
• Identity-anchored reflections where interns considered how who they are shapes how they practice

These strategies mirror themes from my broader professional work, such as my doctoral research on culturally responsive SEL and the frameworks I’ve developed to support schools, educators, and service providers. While I reference these lightly in supervision, their essence guides the way I helped interns become reflective, ethical, culturally humble practitioners.

SEL as a Reciprocal Practice

What I loved most about this work was how reciprocal it is.

Children learned SEL from interns.
Interns learned SEL from supervision.
And I learned from all of them.

SEL becomes a shared language, one that helps us navigate complex emotions, build compassionate relationships, and stay grounded in the humanity of school-based mental health work. When interns grow in their own SEL capacities, students experience more stability, empathy, and connection.

Teaching SEL twice, once to children and once to the adults who support them, creates a school culture where social-emotional learning is not an add-on. It’s a foundation.

And for me, it’s a reminder that every time we invest in SEL for adults, we strengthen SEL for children.

The views in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CASEL.

Dr. Arelis Tapia-Vargas is a social worker, program director, and instructor at New Jersey’s largest public university, where her work focuses on child and adolescent well-being and preparing future social workers to support children, youth, and families. As a first-generation Peruvian Latina, she brings a strengths-based and intersectional perspective to her work, challenging future social workers to critically examine the systems that shape the experiences and opportunities of children, families, and communities, while also reflecting on their own identities, perspectives, and roles within those systems. 

Related Posts:

• How SEL Upped My Game in School Social Work and Leadership
• To Support “Newcomers,” Teacher Prep Needs Critical Consciousness
• What About the Adults? A Peek at CASEL’s New Report on Adult SEL Approaches

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