| By: Committee for Children The Economic Value of Social and Emotional Learning Given the many responsibilities in a day and the limited timeframe for accomplishing them, I often find myself considering which tasks are most worth my time when prioritizing what to do. In other words, what is the return on my investment? 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
| By: Committee for Children Social-Emotional Learning from a Culturally Responsive Lens I have been fortunate to learn from many great people throughout my years in education. Recently, I had a chance to connect with Lea Denny, an advocate for First Nations youth. Throughout the past year, Lea has taught me the importance of culture in the teaching and modeling of social-emotional skills. I'd like to share some of that learning with you.Read More
| By: Committee for Children Ducky, Rudy the Redhawk, and YOU Having a class mascot can help increase the positive culture and integrate social-emotional skills into your day. What is a class mascot, you say? Usually, it's a stuffed animal. Many times it has something to do with the teacher, such as a teddy bear the teacher was given from a teacher of hers, a stuffed animal from a favorite book (like Curious George or Pete the Cat), or a stuffed animal from the college the teacher attended. Read More
| By: Committee for Children Four Tips for Creating a Safe and Supportive Classroom It's Monday morning, and your student Charlie storms in, pushing people and throwing things. With Charlie, there are lots of days like this, especially after the weekend. But what you do next can make a big difference to Charlie's day, to your day, and to his overall experience in school. Senior Program Developer Bridgid Normand gives four practical tips for creating an environment in which Charlie and all your other students can learn. Read More
| By: Committee for Children Celebrating the Gains Made in Children’s Safety We don't have to tell you that helping children and youth feel safe enough to learn can feel like a difficult job. And there are moments when our protection efforts feel woefully ineffective and inadequate. But Dr. Lisa Jones, a psychologist at the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center, hopes you'll take a moment realize that all the hard work you and your colleagues are doing is paying off. Read More
| By: Committee for Children Empowering and Supporting Children to Foster Safe and Supportive Schools Almost daily, I see indicators of the importance of positive social and emotional skills. Just yesterday I came across an article by Travis Bradberry entitled “13 Habits of Exceptionally Likable People,” which related likability to emotional intelligence and behaviors such as not passing judgment, using positive body language, minimizing gossip, and greeting people by name. The article promotes teaching strategies to increase emotional intelligence, yet that alone does not determine why some people use positive social and emotional skills and others do not. Although it would take more than a blog to answer that question fully, one of the ways skills are fostered is through safe, understanding, and encouraging environments. Such environments support children affected by different experiences by empowering and teaching them to act and to help others. These examples show how different surroundings can affect what children do. Read More