Many educators and education leaders are juggling competing initiatives, increased demands, and students with more needs than ever. Social and emotional learning (SEL) offers a powerful way to unify and align efforts to ensure each student experiences educational experiences that support academic success, a learning mindset, belonging and engagement, and career readiness.
To help these educators, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) today announced the expansion to The CASEL Guide to Evidence-Based Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Programs. The Guide began in 2003 as Safe and Sound, CASEL’s first major review of SEL programs, which established CASEL’s role as field leader and arbiter of excellence in identifying and reviewing high-quality, evidence-based SEL programs. Since then, the Guide has grown and evolved, with 9,200 active users logged in per month. Free to all, the Guide provides expert insights into SEL programs, which can be selected to ensure consistency across schools and align with the school’s or district’s top priorities.
“We like to say that SEL isn’t just one more thing on the plate,” said Dr. Joshua P. Starr, CASEL’s Chief Executive Officer. “It is the plate.” By identifying and selecting high-quality, evidence-based programs, school leaders can translate a unifying, coherent foundation of SEL to classroom learning and practices that impact students every day.
Each program in the Guide is vetted by PhD-level experts for quality and assessed for evidence of effectiveness using one or more completed evaluations from the program providers that use a randomized control trial or quasi experimental design with a strong comparison group. These experts review these these evaluations against a set of criteria including program features, research design, statistical analysis, and outcome measures, and implementation and design experts review all the curricular and training materials against criteria that captures best practices such as following a SAFE framework (sequenced, active, focused, explicit) and developmentally scoped materials. Learn more about these criteria.
The Guide offers a robust search and filter function so educators can identify programs that meet their classroom, school, and district priorities. The Guide allows users to search effective programs that support their district’s or school’s needs, goals, and priorities; compare programs; and determine opportunities for professional learning and implementation support for school and district staff.
“The Program Guide is an important tool for schools and districts to find evidence-based approaches that best meet their needs,” said Dr. Rista Plate, Director of Research and Learning at CASEL. “Some may want to focus on outcomes tied directly to academic achievement, others may want to focus on student prosocial behaviors or sense of connectedness. Our guide enables educators to do just that.”
Programs in the Guide are designated as ‘SELect’ (met or exceeded all criteria), ‘Promising’ (met or exceeded most criteria), or ‘SEL-Supportive’ (met evidence criteria but did not fully meet design criteria). The criteria CASEL uses for these designations align with the evidence criteria.
With the addition of 11 new programs, the Program Guide now includes 110 programs that can support student learning.
New ‘SELect’ programs:
- The Pyramid Model for Promoting Social Emotional Competence in Infants and Young Children
- Global Game Changers Student Empowerment Program
- Sown to Grow
- Kind Mind
- 7 Mindsets
- Resilience Builder Program – Universal
Plus, Second Step Middle School Digital Program added new evidence of effectiveness!
New ‘Promising’ programs:
- Kind Hearted Kids
- Character Playbook
- Well-Managed Schools
- The Zones of Regulation
- Back Pocket
The criteria CASEL uses for these designations align with ESSA evidence criteria. Learn more about the inclusion criteria and alignment with ESSA here.
Learn more at: https://pg.casel.org/