1. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL): Key to Mental Health Promotion
Jean Hughes, RN, PhD
Professor, School of Nursing, Dalhousie University
Lead Researcher – SEAK Project
SEL Research Group/ CASEL Update, July 2010

2. Social and Emotional Learning … Key Life Skills
SEL includes the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to:
understand and manage emotions,
set and achieve positive goals,
feel and show empathy for others,
establish and maintain positive relationships,
make responsible decisions.
Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

3. Responsible decision making
SEL Competencies
Self-awareness
Self-management
Social awareness
Relationship skills
Responsible decision making
CASEL

4. SEL Skills Assist Mental Health Promotion:
Enhance capacity to take control
Foster individual resilience
Foster individual protective factors

5. Why are SEL skills so important?
Neuropsychological models argue that children’s neurological functioning affects:
the regulation of Strong emotions
Social function
Cognitive function
Behavioural function
Riggs et al., 2006

6. Why are SEL skills so important?
Research shows that environmental stress during childhood & adolescence has substantial effects on the operation of the neuroendocrine system and that these effects are likely to have long term impact on both cognitive and social-emotional functioning
Shankoff, et al., 2009 in Bradshaw, et al., 2012

7. Why are SEL skills so important?
Fortunately brain function and its behavioral outcomes are malleable during these developmental stages.
Therefore interventions can assist when focused on:
THE ENVIRONMENT - Strengthen children’s social– ecologies (responsive parenting, caring & welcoming schools)
SEL SKILLS - support children’s development of Social & emotional regulation & coping abilities
Bradshaw, et al., 2012

8. Do SEL interventions work… What does the evidence say?
Meta-analysis:
213 school-based, universal SEL programs
270,034 students - kindergarten through high school.
Durlak, et Al., 2011

9. Results:
Compared to controls, SEL participants demonstrated significant improvement in:
social and emotional skills,
attitudes, behavior,
academic performance that reflected an 11- percentile-point gain in achievement.
Durlak, et al., 2011

10. Key Findings Classroom Teachers
Only when school staff conduct the intervention does academic performance improve significantly.
SEL Research Group/ CASEL Update, July 2010

11. Program Implementation Quality
Key Findings
Program Implementation Quality
The benefits of effective SEL programs are reduced when schools
do not adopt evidence-based programs
do not implement these programs with fidelity.
SEL Research Group/ CASEL Update, July 2010

12. Key Findings Maximize the SEL and academic outcomes by combining:
support to school personnel who deliver evidence-based SEL programming
sound educational policy
SEL Research Group/ CASEL Update, July 2010

13. Best Evidence re SEL Programs…
Positive change in students’ developmental health and well-being are best achieved from programs that are:
Focused on social, cognitive and emotional processes
School based
Multi Year
Conduct Problem Prevention Research. (2010); Jones, et al., 2011

14. Best Evidence re SEL Programs…
Universal (whole school approach)
builds common language (culture)
generalizes competence – to other courses, outside classroom/school
SEL Research Group/ CASEL Update, July 2010

15. Best Evidence re SEL Programs Cont’d.
Provide:
a manualized curriculum
opportunities for practice
Teacher/staff training
On-going mentoring/support
School Principal – program champion
SEL Research Group/ CASEL Update, July 2010

16. Such Commitment Requires Policy Change

17. What type of policy is critical to sustain SEL?
Policies at many different levels (federal, provincial and local) play a key role in determining the priority that schools give to SEL
in teacher preparation – B. Ed. Programs
in the curriculum
in assessing students’ learning of the basic SEL competencies.

18. What type of policy is critical to sustain SEL?
Provincial learning standards
a primary driver of curriculum and assessment.
Provinces are increasingly including SEL in their standards… but need to ensure:
evidence-based programs
implementation fidelity.

19. Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies
One SEL Program: PATHS
Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies
Kusche & Greenberg, 1994.

20. One SEL Program: PATHS Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies
Highly Ranked Evidence-Based SEL Program
Blueprints Project of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado
Model Program – highest possible rating
Only violence-prevention curriculum for elementary-age children to achieve this rating

21. PATHS National Dropout Prevention Center/Network
Model Program – highest possible rating
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
Select Program – highest possible rating
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Best Practices Program

22. PATHS is rooted in developmental neuroscience showing that:
Children experience intense emotions before having the cognitive skills to verbalize and control emotions.

23. PATHS
The PATHS curriculum is centered on the ABCD model of development (affective/behaviour/cognitive/dynamic) arguing that:
affect, vocabulary, and cognition interact to create social and emotional competence

24. PATHS Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies
Elementary school-wide program
Kindergarten – Grade 6
Manualized curriculum
Delivered by trained teachers
two 20 minute lessons each week all year, every year

25. Enhanced Emotional Understanding Enhanced Pro-social Behaviour
Summary of key PATHS research findings Compared to students from control schools, PATHS students show:
Enhanced Emotional Understanding
Enhanced Pro-social Behaviour
better understand social problems and create effective solutions
reduced aggression and disruptiveness
SEL Research Group/ CASEL Update, July 2010

26. Summary of key PATHS research findings
Enhanced Cognitive Skills and Academic Performance
effective problem solving, thinking and planning skills, and controlled impulses
academic engagement
SEL Research Group/ CASEL Update, July 2010

27. Summary of key PATHS research findings
Enhanced Mental Health
diminished internalizing problems such as anxiety and sadness
decreased externalizing problems such as conduct disorder, Oppositional Deviance Disorder or ODD, hyperactivity, frustration
SEL Research Group/ CASEL Update, July 2010

28. PATHS In Action

29. The SEAK Project: PATHS In Canada
Contact: Jean Hughes, RN, PhD,
Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada
SEL Research Group/ CASEL Update, July 2010

30. Socially and Emotional Aware Kids: The SEAK Team
Canadian Mental Health Assoc. Nova Scotia Division
Gail Gardiner – Executive Director CMHA NS Division
Dalhousie University
Dr. Jean Hughes – Lead Researcher/ Principal Investigator
Dr. Sophie Jacques – Associate Researcher
Dr. Noriyeh Rahbari – SEAK Research Coordinator

31. Our Project: SEAK Socially and Emotionally Aware Kids
Vision:
Socially and Emotionally Competent Children
in a Healthy Community.
Approach:
Based in Population Health & Health Promotion.
Core Intervention:
Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS)
To realize our vision of…
SEAK has adopted PATHS an evidence-informed, school-based, mental health promotion intervention and EMPATHIC a culturally sensitive derivative of PATHS.
In January 2009 CMHA began the development of a Child & Youth Initiative supported by Manulife Financial. Given that this was a two year partnership we felt that in order to have the greatest impact possible it made the most sense to adopt an established, evidence-based intervention. Various programs and initiatives were reviewed and ultimately it was determined that the PATHS intervention was the most appropriate, given CMHA’s longstanding acknowledgment of the importance of mental health promotion and resource allocation towards primary mental health prevention initiatives that enhance the population’s knowledge, skills, and support for the health of all ages.
As a result, in 2009 CMHA entered into an existing partnership established in the South Shore where PATHS had already been implemented.

32. SEAK – Objectives 4 Years
Increase the social and emotional competence of children in project sites identified as having health inequalities .
Strengthen community capacity to integrate mental health promotion.
Increase community capacity for leadership, collaboration and accountability in population health innovation diffusion related to social and emotional learning.
It was at this point that the SEAK initiative was developed along with these 5 objectives which focus on 1) implementing the intervention, 2) partnering with all key stakeholders, doing everything we can to promote 3)knowledge mobilization, 4) ensure sustainability and finally 5) using evaluation results to refine our initiative.
CMHA was successful in securing funding under the PHAC’s Innovation Strategy and have engaged a number of Partners also interested in implementing the PATHS intervention. With this in place we are now interested in expanding within Nova Scotia and wanted to ensure that you were all aware of our initiative and the PATHS intervention.

33. SEAK – Objectives
Provide evidence to support the innovation and inform policy and service change over the long term.
Advance knowledge on population health innovation diffusion related to social and emotional learning.

34. Project Sites: Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Alberta
PATHS Intervention Schools
Receive the PATHS program (K- grade 6)
5 community sites (approx. 350 students/site)
2 sites delivering PATHS (4yrs, 13 yrs)
3 new sites – phase in PATHS
Wait-List schools
Wait-listed for 1-2 years and then receive PATHS intervention
At least100 students/school
Total = Students (numbers vary by site)

35. Outcome indicators: Chosen to enhance buy-in from key stakeholders
SEL
During PATHS
Long-term follow up after PATHS (SEL & Risk)
School
Climate
Discipline
Academics, school retention
Health - Obesity (BMI)
Parent mental well-being
Health service use
Economic Analysis (cost-benefit) of PATHS
Quantitative and qualitative measures

36. Policy/Sustainability Issues Identified by SEAK Project
Curriculum
Needs to be formally integrated into curriculum of Educational authority (provincial, national level)
Focus
Build core skills to explore emotions and relationships & focus on strengths rather than interventions to address specific problems (bullying/ suicide) that focus only on symptoms

37. Policy/Sustainability Issues Identified by SEAK Project
Financial Collaborations
Government
multiple sectors- education, health, recreation, justice, etc.
Focus: cost-effectiveness
Corporate
Focus: PATHS builds desired employee skills
Not for Profit, Foundations
Focus: citizenship
Scale Up

38. It really does take a village to raise a healthy child!

39. References
Bradshaw, et al., Goldweber, A., Fishbein, D., Greenberg, M. (2012). Infusing developmental neuroscience into school-based prevention interventions: Implications and future directions. Journal of Adolescent Health, 51: S41- S47.
Conduct Problem Prevention Research. (2010). The effects of a multiyear universal social-emotional learning program: The role of student and school characteristics. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 78(2):
Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D. & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82: 405–432.
SEL Research Group/ CASEL Update, July 2010

40. References
Jones, S. Brown, J., Aber, J. L. (2011). Two-year impacts of a universal school-based social-emotional and literacy intervention: An experiment in translational developmental research. Child Development, 82(2):
Kusche & Greenberg, The PATHS Curriculum. Seattle, WA: Developmental Research and Programs.
Riggs, N., Greenberg, M., Kusche, C., Pentz, M.A. (2006). The mediational role of neurocognition in the behavioural outcomes of a social-emotional prevention program in elementary school students: Effects of the PATHS curriculum. Prevention Science. 7(1):
SEL Research Group (2010). The benefits of school-based social and emotional learning programs: Highlights from a forthcoming CASEL Report. Chicago: University of Illinois at Chicago SEL Research Group & The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning.
SEL Research Group/ CASEL Update, July 2010