crisisresponse.promoteprevent.org
Skip to main content

Element 3: Student Behavioral, Social, and Emotional Supports

Publication Year: 
2011
Authored By: 
National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention

Element 3 focuses on providing students with the behavioral, social, and emotional supports they need to succeed in school and in life. This brief reviews the importance of element 3 to SS/HS work for project directors, and provides information and resources to effectively offer these supports.

Impact of Element 3

Children and youth face a number of risks to their behavioral, social, and emotional health. Poverty, substance abuse, developmental delays, mental health and behavioral issues, violence, racism, and overexposure to harmful media messages can all place a burden on a young person’s healthy development.

Students who suffer from personal or emotional problems are less likely to succeed academically, stay in school, and develop a love of learning. These children and youth may act out in class, be truant or drop out, or not achieve academic success—which affects the entire school. Moreover, as students’ educational outcomes are influenced by their peers, those who associate with students who have social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties are less likely to be involved in school activities, and their own academic and health behaviors may suffer.i,ii

Increasingly, schools understand the need to provide supports to students to help them succeed socially, emotionally, and academically. Programs and interventions delivered in schools can indeed promote academic success, enhance health, and prevent behavioral problems. According to the Collaborative for Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), social and emotional learning (SEL) programs delivered in schools can do the following:

  • Improve social and emotional skills
  • Decrease disciplinary actions
  • Increase academic achievement, including test scores and GPAs
  • Foster school bonding
  • Increase positive social behavior

According to CASEL, SEL programs provide “a coordinated and coherent approach to helping children recognize and manage their emotions, appreciate the perspectives of others, establish positive goals, make responsible decisions, and handle interpersonal situations effectively.”

To maximize their effectiveness, these programs and activities should be coordinated and all-inclusive, rather than fragmented and piecemeal. Ideally, SEL programming should begin in preschool—for instance, identifying and working with children who do not have the social readiness for school—and continue through high school, with coordinated programming reinforcing and enhancing activities from the previous years.

In terms of preventing substance abuse, absenteeism, early sexual initiation, violence, and other risky behaviors (e.g., driving under the influence), school connectedness is the strongest protective factor.iii SEL interventions can heighten students’ feelings of connection to school by engaging them in classroom and school practices. The more students feel connected to school, the more likely they are to engage in healthy behaviors and to succeed academically.

Integration with the Other Elements

Healthy social, emotional, and behavioral skills influence every aspect of a child’s ability to succeed in school. These skills are enhanced by a healthy, safe school environment and a supportive social climate.iv Students who are deficient in these skills are more likely to participate in risky behaviors, such as substance abuse or violence, and may have co-occurring mental health issues.

Programs meant to support element 3 can easily be incorporated into all SS/HS activities. For instance, when promoting mental health and preventing mental health disorders, SS/HS staff can also assess whether students need extra support in developing social, emotional, and behavioral skills. Likewise, substance abuse and violence prevention and intervention programs can incorporate activities meant to strengthen students’ social, emotional, and behavioral skills, making these students less likely to engage in risky behaviors.

Addressing Element 3

Support from school administrators is important for each element, but especially for element 3. In many cases, activities to promote social, emotional, and behavioral health were non-existent, originating with the SS/HS grant. Administrator buy-in helps to ensure that the programming and policies are accepted and implemented with fidelity in the district. With this in mind, project directors should collaborate with school-level administration, communicating the importance and impact of element 3 activities throughout the grant cycle.

Evidence-Based Practices for Creating Behavioral, Social, and Emotional Supports

According to CASEL, social and emotional skill-building is most successful when delivered via effective classroom instruction and when students are engaged in positive activities, both in and out of school. Using local data and conducting a needs assessment can help project directors determine which EBPs will be most relevant to their students.

SEL support can be delivered on several levels: all-inclusive education for entire school bodies, specialized programming for children and youth needing extra support, and intensive programming for children and youth who have displayed social and emotional problems or behavioral issues. Your chosen EBPs should address the entire spectrum of prevention:

I. Universal Prevention—programs that improve safety for all students. For example:

  • Implementing district-wide SEL programming and policies, such as those focusing on character education or problem-solving skills
  • Training all school staff in cultural and linguistic competence
  • Providing positive school and after-school activities for students
  • Modeling good classroom management—such as establishing routines and setting guidelines, planning adequately, and establishing fair disciplinary rules—to foster a positive learning environment and engender positive student-teacher interactions
  • Providing opportunities for families to be actively involved in schools
  • Clearly communicating behavioral and academic expectations to students and their families

II. Selective Prevention—programs that focus on students who need extra support for healthy social, emotional, and behavioral skills development, including those who have displayed early signs of behavioral or emotional problems, and those who are victims of or witnesses to violence. For example:

  • Conducting family-building workshops
  • Teaching staff how to recognize the students who do not have strong social, emotional, or behavioral skills
  • Creating district-wide policies for assessment
  • Referring at-risk families to parenting programs
  • Selecting a staff advisor to spend extra time with at-risk students
  • Hiring a school-family liaison to work with at-risk families
  • Implementing one-on-one tutoring programs for students with academic difficulties
  • Creating an environment where students can practice newly acquired skills in a natural, supervised setting

III. Indicative Prevention—programs for students who exhibit problems with social, emotional, and behavioral skills. For example:

  • Providing early intervention for preschool students who aren’t ready for kindergarten
  • Creating an environment where students can practice newly acquired skills in a natural, supervised setting
  • Working with community counselors to provide wraparound services for these youth and their families

Partnering to Create Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Supports

To maximize the reach and effectiveness of your programming, CASEL recommends that parents, schools, and community members all play a role in program planning, implementation, and evaluation.

The Core Management Team (CMT)

Many project directors say that element 3 is the most difficult one to get buy-in for; therefore, having a superintendent on the CMT who understands the importance of element 3 to school health and safety can help get other partners on board to support your SS/HS efforts.

Local mental health providers can help coordinate the services available within schools and communities to provide healthy social, emotional, and behavioral supports to students, which prevent duplication of services. Their presence on the CMT also allows schools to more easily refer students and families to community services.

Because outcomes regarding element 3 can be difficult to measure, evaluators who serve on the CMT can guide SS/HS staff in program planning and implementing programs with fidelity.

Community Partners

To address element 3, thinking creatively about which community partners to engage can only serve to benefit students. For instance, faith-based organizations, afterschool program providers, and cultural centers can all provide complementary services. These partners can also emphasize the need for cultural and linguistic competence, which is so crucial for element 3.

Parents

Parents are integral to SS/HS work. Engaging parents as partners to address element 3 helps to ensure that messages delivered in schools and the community to enrich students’ social, emotional, and behavioral skills are consistently reinforced at home. Moreover, engaging parents can help connect them to school and community services to strengthen families, and teach them the importance of being positive role models to aid in their children’s healthy development.

Sustainability

Once school administrators and community partners see how readily they can work together on element 3, the partnership can last well beyond SS/HS funding.

SEL programming can be institutionalized and sustained in schools and communities in a number of ways, for example:

  • Using positive evaluation data to seek supplementary and continuation funding for social, emotional, and behavioral support programs in schools
  • Training staff to train others in program and activity implementation
  • Having partners work together to refer students and families to needed community services
  • Offering parent education so that healthy, positive social, emotional, and behavioral messages and supports are reinforced and carried through in students’ homes

The National Center’s School Mental Health Sustainability Guide for SS/HS Project Directors [link to Kellie’s rewritten SMH guide – will be ready shortly] provides detailed information on sustaining school mental health programming and can guide project directors in their efforts to sustain these important programs and activities.

References: 

iFurlong, M. J., Whipple, A. D., St. Jean, G., Simental, J., Soliz, A., & Punthuna, S. (2003). Multiple contexts of social engagement: Moving toward a unifying framework for educational research and practice. The California School Psychologist, 8, 99–113.

iiPellegrini, A., & Bartini M. (1997). A longitudinal study of bullying, victimization, and peer affiliation during the transition from primary school to middle school. American Educational Research Journal, 37(3), 699–725.

iiiResnick, M. D., et al. (1997). Protecting adolescents from harm. Findings from the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health. Journal of the American Medical Association, 278(10), 823–832.

ivCenters for Disease Control and Prevention. (2001, December 7). School health guidelines to prevent unintentional injuries and violence. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 50(RR22), 1–46.