Students present with mental health needs and posttraumatic stress symptoms, yet they largely do not receive necessary services. Since schools are an ideal setting for students to receive mental health services, Mental Health Action Plans (MHAPs) were developed to define and detail the ways in which student mental health needs can be addressed at…

Freedom School Partners is a six-week summer program that has served the Charlotte, NC area since 2004. The purpose of this report is to present the external evaluation and findings of the six-week program in the summer of 2022. This evaluation is a joint effort between the Centers for Adolescent Literacies (CAL) and the Center for Educational…

In collaboration with an urban public school, teacher candidates at a nearby university created a social-emotional skills project called Knight Brigade. The author discusses the project planning, implementation, and results as part of this ongoing partnership.

This article focuses attention on a critical need for more evidence-based social emotional learning (SEL) programs for middle school students. First, we explore the definition of SEL, pointing out how it has evolved as our world has changed. We review key SEL domains and skills and describe universal school-based SEL programming as one approach to…

While all school transitions are important, the middle to high school shift stands out. It coincides with biological, social, and cognitive changes in young people that began in early adolescence but continue into high school. These changes can be quite stressful, often disrupting students' academic performance and social and emotional well-being…

When youth are placed in detention facilities, their education, ties to society, and lives are disrupted. Yet any involvement with the justice system -- regardless of incarceration -- can have implications for one's future earning potential and career trajectory, limiting access to educational opportunities, career fields, and available supports.…

The increase in diagnoses of autism for elementary aged students paired with schools increasingly moving towards inclusive classroom models creates a challenge for general education teachers. This quantitative quasi-experimental study was designed to investigate the efficacy of an after school, explicit social skills intervention, and the impact…

This study aimed to better understand the role that an undergraduate teacher exploration program for STEM majors played in STEM teacher education and recruitment. Utilizing journal data from 126 undergraduate students engaged in an intensive and immersive four-day internship that took place in Summer 2015 and Summer 2016, this study examined how…

In the United States, involvement with the juvenile justice system can have a long-lasting negative impact on one's life. Young people who are placed in detention facilities are removed from their homes, their families, and their communities. Their education, their ties to society, and their lives are disrupted. Involvement with the justice system…

This cluster-randomized pre-post study examined the effectiveness of Character Playbook, a digitally delivered, universal social-emotional learning (SEL) program, in enhancing social and emotional knowledge and confidence among rural middle school students. Pre- and post-assessments and surveys measured students' knowledge and self-reported…

This article uses a healing research methodology to describe how school counselors create, implement, and facilitate psychoeducational Educator Social-Emotional Learning (EduSEL) interventions. Using individual and small group interventions, school counselors sought to improve educators' social and emotional competence, which fosters healthier…

The purpose of the current study is to reveal the perception of group counselors regarding children's social emotional skills with a focus on art therapy. In this study, a partially mixed simultaneous equal-status design from mixed design models was used. The study group of the research consisted of 10-11-year-old students (n: 28, female: 14,…

After a steady increase throughout the middle of the 20th century, arts education has been in decline since the 1980s. Teachers attributed the declines to test-score pressures, budget cuts, or both. These trends have been most pronounced for students of color, who are more likely than white students to attend under-resourced schools and about half…

The purpose of this study was to determine if an experimental Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) based alternative discipline policy paired with a community-school partnership, effects suspended students' subsequent suspension incidents. Data were collected from four Midwestern school districts participating in an experimental Alternative to Out…

Multitiered systems of support (MTSS) is an effective model for identifying students at risk for academic failure as well as behavioral concerns (excesses and deficits) that impede classroom success. Over the years, researchers have investigated the positive effects of the MTSS model on behavioral needs of students; however, to date the research…