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Resources
Below, you’ll find resources to help develop and strengthen family and community partnerships.
See how districts have strategized and planned to partner with families and communities
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Insights from the Caregiver Community: Building Authentic School and Family Partnerships This brief highlights key learnings from CASEL’s pilot SEL Dialogue Series for Caregiver-School Partnerships, which took place at a high school in Chicago, Ill., during Spring, 2022. It hones in on 4 insights towards creating authentic school-family partnerships, each with a corresponding set of recommendations for school leaders. SOURCE: CASEL |
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How can a school district select an SEL program that aligns with its commitment to equity and social justice through an inclusive process that also demonstrates and deepens that commitment? This brief describes Portland's approach that brought many voices to the table, shared decision-making power, built trust, and centered the district's equity work. SOURCE: CASEL |
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This report outlines lessons from six communities that have focused on SEL partnerships between schools and out-of-school time community partner organizations. Detailed case examples feature collaborative projects on a variety of SEL topics in Boston, Dallas, Denver, Palm Beach County, Tacoma, and Tulsa. SOURCE: RAND |
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9 Tips to Boost SEL in Schools and OST Programs This infographic is a supplement to the full report and case examples that can be found at wallacefoundation.org/PSELI SOURCE: RAND |
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2011 to 2021: 10 Years of SEL in U.S. School Districts Ten years ago, CASEL began collaborating with school district SEL leaders to explore the question - Is it possible to implement SEL systemically to positively impact students across a large urban school district? Not only did districts demonstrate that it was possible, but every district has deepened and expanded SEL implementation since joining the collaborative. This anniversary report details 6 key insights from these districts about how they were able to sustain SEL over the long term, even as the people and contexts within the district changed. SOURCE: CASEL |
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SEL Dallas Implementation Guidebook A collaboration between Dallas Independent School District and out-of-school-time partners, this site provides a model for partnership building, laying out a clear process, key roles, and best practices for strengthening partnerships between school districts and youth-serving organizations to promote and align SEL practices. SOURCE: SEL Dallas |
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This report details the study of partnerships between schools and out of school time partners working together to implement SEL in a coordinated way, organizing lessons learned into 4 main categories: system-level launch activities, developing partnerships, developing adults' capacity to promote SEL, and improving climate and delivering SEL instruction. SOURCE: Wallace Foundation |
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Find ready-to-use tools
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SEL Toolkit for Parent Champions A quick guide for parents and caregivers to share accurate information in support of SEL, including tools to ground conversations in facts and data, dispel misinformation, and advocate for high-quality SEL. SOURCE: CASEL |
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Leading with SEL Advocacy Tools This site provides resources for SEL advocates, including toolkits for parents and school board members. There is guidance for conversations, communications, engaging media outlets, and reaching out to policymakers. SOURCE: CASEL |
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Sample Schoolwide SEL 101 Presentation (Spanish) Slides and presenter notes are in Spanish -- This presentation can be adapted and used to introduce SEL to staff, families, and community partners. SOURCE: CASEL |
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SEL 101: What are the core competencies and key settings? (video) How can you bring social and emotional learning to your community? CASEL's framework for social and emotional learning (SEL) takes a systemic approach, identifying five core competence areas and four key settings. SOURCE: CASEL |
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SEL 3 Signature Practices introductory video – Out of School Time version Video describing the SEL 3 Signature Practices (welcoming inclusion activity, engaging practices, and optimistic closure) and how to use them in before and after school settings. SOURCE: CASEL |
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SEL Dialogue Series for Parents and Caregivers 10 facilitated discussions to engage families in conversations about the social and emotional growth of their families and share perspectives and feedback with school leaders. This updated set of materials includes a participant workbook, surveys, and presenter slides (all in both English and Spanish) and materials to support series coordination -- all are free to access after registration. SOURCE: CASEL |
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CASEL’s SEL for Parents (English) Video describes SEL for a parent audience and provides strategies to bring SEL into the home, aligned with the 5 SEL competencies. Features schools in Chicago and includes interviews with parents and caregivers. SOURCE: CASEL |
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School Climate Survey for Families Sacramento City Unified School District used this 2 page survey to gather family members' perspectives about school culture, equity, and the quality of interactions with school staff. It has been translated into 5 other languages at www.scusd.edu/post/2019-school-climate-survey-families. SOURCE: Sacramento City Unified School District |
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Convening a Cross-Functional Advisory Council for SEL: Resources, Best Practices, and Suggestions Key considerations for districts as they build a council consisting of members from different organizations and departments to align social and emotional learning between in-school and out-of-school time settings. SOURCE: CASEL |
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Raising Caring, Confident, Capable Children (brochure) Brochure for parents and caregivers providing an overview of SEL, 10 practices to use at home to foster SEL, and ideas for engaging with the school's SEL initiatives. SOURCE: Illinois DOE |
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Partnerships by Design: Cultivating Effective and Meaningful School-Family-Community Partnerships This tool from Northwest REL includes forms, worksheets, and activities to assess the current state of family and community collaboration, create a vision for partnership, and set up an action plan. SOURCE: Northwest REL |
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Partnering with Community Organizations to Support SEL This tool from CASEL's Guide to Schoolwide SEL describes 3 main ways schools can partner with community organizations: by bringing partners into the school, linking families with their resources, and organizing community-based experiences for students. SOURCE: CASEL |
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Social and Emotional Learning Practices: A Self-Reflection Tool for Afterschool Staff Part of AIR's Beyond the Bell series, this tool aimed at out-of-school time staff includes reflections on social practices, program implementation practices, and personal SEL competencies, built upon the framework of 10 practices that promote social and emotional learning. SOURCE: AIR |
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This tool from CASEL's Guide to Schoolwide SEL provides questions to help the SEL team think intentionally about how to fully partner with OST providers to promote SEL. SOURCE: CASEL |
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The In-School and Afterschool Social Emotional Learning Connection: A Planning Tool Tool for afterschool and in-school staff first to reflect independently on their goals for SEL and think about what is being done in each setting to support SEL, then to discuss how to work collaboratively toward a common goal. SOURCE: AIR |
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Strategies for Establishing School-Family Partnerships This tool from CASEL's Guide to Schoolwide SEL outlines the components of a meaningful partnership that involves family members in their child's social and emotional development and in schoolwide decision making about SEL, and proposes strategies for bridging constraints and communication gaps. SOURCE: CASEL |
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Key Responsibilities of a School-Family Partnership Lead This tool from CASEL's Guide to Schoolwide SEL defines the role of a parent leader who is a member of the school's SEL team and coordinator of school-family partnerships. Also available in Spanish. SOURCE: CASEL |
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Ideas and Tools for Working with Parents and Families Packet describing benefits and strategies for school-family partnerships in developing social and emotional skills; includes handouts for families and overviews of SEL programs that incorporate activities for families. SOURCE: CASEL |
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Student-led Conferences Introduction Overview of a Nashville middle school's model for student-led conferences, appropriate for grades 4-12. SOURCE: Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools |
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Find presentation templates that you can adapt and use
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Bilingual Parent/Community Introduction to SEL Una Introducción al Aprendizaje Social y Emocional is CASEL's free online course that describes the basics of what SEL is and isn't, and includes reflective activities about how SEL comes into play in daily life and interactions with young people. This works well for families, community partners, or staff members who speak Spanish. SOURCE: CASEL |
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See artifacts shared by districts and schools
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What Is SEL? A Two-Page Summary This example from a school division in southeastern Virginia provides a quick and accessible look at the 5 SEL competencies, benefits of SEL, and ways school staff support SEL. |
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SEL Dallas Implementation Guidebook A collaboration between Dallas Independent School District and out-of-school-time partners, this site provides a model for partnership building, laying out a clear process, key roles, and best practices for strengthening partnerships between school districts and youth-serving organizations to promote and align SEL practices. SOURCE: SEL Dallas |
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Relate 918 – Tulsa’s Partnership with The Opportunity Project Relate 918 is a joint initiative of Tulsa Public Schools and The Opportunity Project to build life skills for students both during and after school. The Opportunity Project is Tulsa's expanded learning partner. SOURCE: Tulsa Public Schools |
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Chicago Student Code of Conduct (video) This short video helps students and their families understand Chicago's student code of conduct and highlights the district's SEL-infused approach to student discipline. SOURCE: Chicago Public Schools |
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Teacher Interview: How do Families Respond to SEL? (video) A 5th grade teacher from Anchorage speaks about how she introduces SEL to families, has students share their learning with their families, and hears feedback from families about how they see the impact of SEL at home. SOURCE: Anchorage Public Schools |
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SEL Partnership between Denver Public Schools and the Denver After-school Alliance 2 page flyer summarizing the plan for infusing evidence-based SEL throughout all grade levels in schools, afterschool, and in summer programs throughout Denver. SOURCE: Denver Public Schools |
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Social-Emotional Learning in Expanded Learning Programs Sacramento's 2 page flyer summarizing common goals between schools and expanded learning opportunities, and the importance of working together as partners. SOURCE: Sacramento City Unified School District |
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Examples of Community Collaboration for SEL Implementation Austin's 1 pager describing 3 SEL-focused partnerships with community organizations and programs. SOURCE: Austin Independent School District |
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Find resources to help you learn more on this topic
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DRC Documents |
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Insights from the Caregiver Community: Building Authentic School and Family Partnerships This brief highlights key learnings from CASEL’s pilot SEL Dialogue Series for Caregiver-School Partnerships, which took place at a high school in Chicago, Ill., during Spring, 2022. It hones in on 4 insights towards creating authentic school-family partnerships, each with a corresponding set of recommendations for school leaders. SOURCE: CASEL |
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This report outlines lessons from six communities that have focused on SEL partnerships between schools and out-of-school time community partner organizations. Detailed case examples feature collaborative projects on a variety of SEL topics in Boston, Dallas, Denver, Palm Beach County, Tacoma, and Tulsa. SOURCE: RAND |
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9 Tips to Boost SEL in Schools and OST Programs This infographic is a supplement to the full report and case examples that can be found at wallacefoundation.org/PSELI SOURCE: RAND |
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This report details the study of partnerships between schools and out of school time partners working together to implement SEL in a coordinated way, organizing lessons learned into 4 main categories: system-level launch activities, developing partnerships, developing adults' capacity to promote SEL, and improving climate and delivering SEL instruction. SOURCE: Wallace Foundation |
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Relationships First: Creating Connections that Help Young People Thrive Young people deeply benefit from developmental relationships with a variety of people including program leaders from community organizations, mentors, parents, teachers, and friends. This resource lays out a framework for building strong relationships with young people, and concludes with 55 concrete ideas. SOURCE: Search Institute |
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In this 2018 study, Miller, Wanless & Weissberg examined how professionals in the field of SEL translate between their professional knowledge and their personal parenting practices and priorities for their children's development. Responses are analyzed and compared to the CASEL 5 competency framework. SOURCE: Research Journal |
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Social and Emotional Learning in Out-of-School Time Settings Brief from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Wallace Foundation providing guidelines and considerations for adapting leading SEL programs to out-of-school settings. SOURCE: Wallace Foundation |
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Finding Common Ground: Connecting Social-Emotional Learning During and Beyond the School Day Brief from the Partnership for Children and Youth providing language and strategies to support alignment between schools and expanded learning programs to impact SEL, featuring examples from San Francisco Unified School District. |
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Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships A framework for creating the right conditions for engagement and designing scaffolded family engagement initiatives that build capacity for both educators and families to partner to support students. Includes 3 school and district case studies. SOURCE: AIR |
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School-Family Partnership Strategies to Enhance Children’s Social, Emotional, and Academic Growth This brief provides educators with strategies and examples to build and nurture successful school-family partnerships and create an engaging and supportive climate for learning in school and at home. SOURCE: CASEL |
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In Oakland, Reinventing School Policing Article and video about Oakland schools' partnership with police and special SEL training for school-based officers. SOURCE: Oakland Unified School District |
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Includes findings from the Social and Emotional Learning Interventions Under the ESSA: Evidence Review, focusing specifically on what the review found related to family and community engagement, and a presentation from a district administrator. Hosted by REL Northeast & Islands SOURCE: REL Northeast & Islands |
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Montana's site focused on parenting and SEL, with tools to address challenges parents mention most. Age-specific tools guide parents through a process of seeking their child's input, interactive modeling, practice, support, and reinforcement. SOURCE: Montana's Department of Public Health and Human Services |
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Helping Children and Adolescents Cope with Traumatic Events The National Institute of Mental Health shares this 2 page resource in English and Spanish to help adults understand how children may respond to traumatic events, what they can do to be supportive, and how to get additional help. |
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