| By: Kim Gulbrandson 5 Big Ideas for Back-to-School, Courtesy of the Second Step Program Ready…Set…Go! It’s that time of year again. Pull those Second Step kits off the shelf and get ready to roll because the way you initially approach implementation sets the stage for continued success. Implementation is an ongoing process that needs to be considered up front and then planned for and supported regularly if it is to be sustained (Leadbeater, Gladstone, & Sukhawathanakul, 2015). Take a look at these ways to gear up and get your Second Step program implementation off to a good start. Read More
| By: Kim Gulbrandson Understanding and Inspiring a Growth Mindset—4 Ways to Get Started A new school year is about to begin. As you revisit your goals and plans for the year, imagine cultivating these characteristics in your students: They are equipped to deal with challenges when faced with difficult work. They believe in their capabilities and in their capacity to improve. They seek challenging learning opportunities and view them as opportunities to learn. They thrive on obstacles and rise to the challenge when things get difficult. They believe they have control over their present and future. It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Read More
| By: Committee for Children Safe Children Thriving in a Peaceful World: The Committee for Children Story Maurice J. Elias, director of Rutgers University’s Social-Emotional Learning Lab and longtime proponent of social-emotional learning and supporter of Committee for Children, describes his thoughts on CFC’s impact on the community at large. Read More
| By: Shauna McBride Talking to Children About Terrorism How can parents and those who regularly interact with children best communicate about terrorism and other violent tragedies? Committee for Children, creator of the Second Step social-emotional learning program, has compiled resources to assist with and help navigate these tough conversations. Read More
| By: Committee for Children A Parent’s Guide to Role-Playing Bullying Reports Bullying is serious. Make sure your child knows that it is important to practice reporting the way he or she would do it in real life. When you and your child practice giving and receiving reports, you’ll have the skills and confidence to handle bullying if it really happens. When your child reports bullying, it is most important to really listen and ensure your child’s safety. The following are steps you can take when your child comes to you about a bullying situation. Read More
| By: Kim Gulbrandson Expand Your Bullying Prevention Toolkit with Social-Emotional Learning Every year schools and communities across the country unite in their bullying prevention efforts during the month of October for National Bullying Prevention Month. Does this mean that if you focus on bullying prevention for one month you’re done? Not at all! This month is meant to jump-start continued efforts to prevent bullying. And social-emotional learning can make a great addition to the toolkit that helps you do this.Read More
| By: Kim Gulbrandson Time to Get Excited about Social-Emotional Learning! As we gear up for the upcoming school year and continue planning to lay the foundation for children to become knowledgeable, responsible, and caring adults, I wanted to share a few SEL highlights to energize you as you begin 2015–2016: Read More
| By: Committee for Children Book Review: Not in Room 204 When a teacher goes beyond a standard “stranger danger” lesson to tell her class it's more likely to be someone a child knows who touches a child inappropriately and that she would help anyone who had a touching problem, this is just the information and encouragement young Regina needs to report her own scary secret. Read More
| By: Committee for Children He Just Disclosed in Class! What Do I Do? The goal of the Child Protection Unit lessons is to develop students' ability to recognize, report, and refuse unsafe or sexually abusive situations. During the lessons, students will hear stories and scenarios about children in unsafe and potentially abusive situations who use their skills to stay safe. This may prompt students to disclose information about similar situations in their own lives, sometimes in the middle of a lesson in front of the entire class! Needless to say, this can put teachers in an uncomfortable position, and in the moment it's hard to know how to respond.Read More
| By: Committee for Children The Second Step Child Protection Unit: A New Approach to Protecting Children from Abuse and Neglect Committee for Children has long been at the forefront of the effort to prevent child sexual abuse. In fact child sexual abuse prevention was the goal of Committee for Children's first published curriculum, the Talking About Touching program. Committee for Children has come a long way since then, bringing the power of social-emotional learning into schools around the world with the Second Step program and helping prevent bullying with the Second Step: Bullying Prevention Unit. Much has also changed in the field of child abuse prevention since the release of the Talking About Touching program, so Committee for Children recently returned to its roots and created the Child Protection Unit, a new Second Step unit designed to help protect children from sexual abuse and other forms of abuse and neglect. Read More