Social-emotional learning and character education

Domain XV · Nature, philosophy, social & rites of passage · Daniel Goleman, Mark T. Greenberg, Eileen R. Growald · 1994

What it is

SEL and character education are school-based formation frameworks and programmes, not psychotherapies. CASEL (the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) defines SEL as a process through which children and adults build knowledge, skills and attitudes to form healthy identities,…

Format

• PATHS (kindergarten to grade 6): lessons three times a week, 20 to 30 minutes each, in units on readiness and self-control (12 lessons), feelings and relationships (56), interpersonal cognitive problem-solving (33, usually from grade 3 or 4) and optional supplementary lessons (30). Staff are…
• Character education: the Jubilee Centre gives no fixed sequence ("no blueprint") and offers a Character Teaching Inventory of 70 strategies grouped as caught, taught and sought. Character.org sets out 11 principles. The last of them is an annual assessment of the character initiative.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• B. Programme format (as registers profile them)
• Second Step Elementary (Committee for Children; ages 5 to 11): four core units taught in order (Skills for Learning, Empathy, Emotion Management, Problem Solving) plus optional Bullying Prevention and Child Protection units. There is about one 25- to 40-minute lesson a week, around 22 lessons per grade, and brief daily practice on the other days. Training is three online modules, with a recommended home element of a…
• Version followed: the CASEL framework (the CASEL 5 competencies, the four settings of the CASEL Wheel and the SAFE criteria) and CASEL's Schoolwide SEL Guide for social-emotional learning (SEL); the Jubilee Centre Framework for Character Education in Schools, third edition (2022), for neo-Aristotelian character education; Character.org's 11 Principles as currently published for schools; PATHS and Second Step…

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Implement. Focus Area 2, strengthen adult SEL; Focus Area 3, promote SEL for students across four areas: school (schoolwide practices and policies including discipline, an evidence-based programme, youth voice, SEL in student supports), classroom (explicit SEL lessons, SEL integrated into academic…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• sessions that end in distress with no settling. If a session raises risk, the close is replaced by safety planning. It is working when practice tasks are recalled at the next session.
• dilemmas that are really disclosures (a friend self-harming, abuse); moralising by the therapist. It is working when the young person can hold both values without collapsing into one.
• the therapist's own political views entering the work; the child caught between parents and school. It is working when parents make an informed decision and the child's plan continues.
• reports that differ between informants (explore the context rather than choose one); a school using SEL ratings to label a child. It is working when informants agree on direction of change.
• blaming individual staff; slipping into personal counselling; systemic problems (staffing, workload) that call for management action. It is working when staff responses become calmer and more…

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.