While SEL and mental health are not the same, SEL can promote positive mental health in many ways. A systemic approach to SEL cultivates responsive relationships, emotionally safe environments, and skills development – important “protective factors” that buffer against mental health risks. In this way, SEL is an indispensable part of promoting overall well-being and positive mental health, helping to improve attitudes about self and others while decreasing emotional distress and risky behaviors. Implementing SEL for all students is essential as part of a system of support and resources that includes mental health promotion, as well as aligned early intervention and targeted treatment when needed.
Mental health supports fall on a continuum of care, or a tiered system of evidence-based supports:
- Tier 1 (for all students): Universal strategies that promote strengths and prevent risks.
- Tier 2 (for some students): Targeted or early interventions for students who have been or might be exposed to risk factors.
- Tier 3 (for a few students): Intensive treatment and intervention supports.
It is critically important to position evidence-based SEL programming and practices as a universal, strengths-based Tier 1 support to promote the skills and environments that contribute to the healthy development, resiliency, and well-being of all young people. As school communities build out their comprehensive school mental health frameworks, pay attention to how these efforts are anchored in a robust SEL foundation that reaches all aspects of the system, including adults. For example, Tier 2 and 3 supports should be consistent in language, framing and expectations with the systemic SEL work happening, and they should also align with overall SEL practices such as relationship-building, and teaching of core social and emotional competencies. A core tenet of systemic SEL is a focus on school-family-community partnerships. Many community partners provide essential mental health services to students and their families, and SEL that is implemented across a system can also help create pathways and alignment between schools, families and community partners as they work together to ensure all students have the support they need to thrive.
Conceptualizing SEL, Mental Health and Emotional Well-Being
Back to topThere are many ways in which work on mental health and social emotional learning reinforces and supports one another, and these collective efforts impact emotional well-being. Part of the challenge is clarifying how these efforts coincide and how they differ. Through the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Learning Collaborative, CASEL is working alongside the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH). As part of this collaborative, educational leaders explore how social emotional learning and comprehensive school mental health contribute to overall emotional well-being, focusing in on four key areas of work that unite these two efforts:
Relationships: Supportive, responsive relationships – between students, between students and adults, with leadership, with parents and caregivers.
Intentional Learning Experiences: Across all settings and tiers of support – classroom, school building, out-of-school time, at home and in community-based spaces – young people and adults have opportunities to prioritize and experience SEL integrated learning.
Skills Development: All young people and adults continually build and refine their skills related to the social and emotional learning competencies, a foundational aspect of mental health promotion.
Equitable environments that are emotionally safe and promote belonging: The environments where we learn, work and play set the foundation for wellness. Environments that are emotionally safe and promote belonging are essential to well-being.
How is CASEL advancing this work?
Back to topWe have developed guidance for district and school leaders on integrating SEL and multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) to create coordination.
- View the district guidance here.
- View the school guidance here.
- Read guidance on distinguishing SEL assessments from mental health assessments.
CASEL partnered with the Council of Chief State School Officers and the American Institutes for Research to create a state-level community of practice for alignment and coherence across SEL and MTSS.
Through the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Learning Collaborative, CASEL is partnered with the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH) to promote the emotional well-being of children and adolescents in schools through professional development, technical assistance, training, resources, and implementation support.
This learning community of state representatives, school districts and youth leaders is part of the National Initiative to Advance Health Equity in K-12 Education by Preventing Chronic Disease and Promoting Healthy Behaviors, a 5-year cooperative agreement awarded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Healthy Schools Branch.
