Social Emotional Learning

Every moment is an opportunity to build social emotional skills as students move throughout their – day engaging with others, experiencing a variety of emotions, and making decisions. Everyday moments can become teachable if the leader senses and seizes the opportunity. Walk away from this session with tangible tips and tools for intentionally developing students’ social emotional skills in real-time.  

Topics Covered:

• The importance of a common language for social emotional skill development
• How to integrate social emotional skill-building language in everyday interactions with students
• Practice incorporating language that builds social emotional skills 

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Identify real-time opportunities to build students’ social emotional skills
• Construct an environment conducive to social emotional learning
• Develop a toolbox to integrate social emotional skill-building into everyday interaction

We can’t control everything in the world, but we can control our responses to various situations that come across our daily paths.  Students learn from how adults respond during difficult times, whether they intentionally model self-management skills or not.  In this session, learn how to practice self-management during high-stress situations and model appropriate responses for students. Gather tips and tools to help both yourself and your students recognize when emotions are heightened and how to respond appropriately in those moments.

Topics Covered:

• Personal self-awareness skills and how to model these to students
• Tips to help students remain calm during difficult situations

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Better understand how to recognize and label a variety of emotions 
• Have a deeper appreciation of personal self-management skills and how to model them to students
• Utilize tips to help students remain calm during difficult situations

Supportive, psychologically safe learning environments that are conducive to learning, healthy development, and happy students don’t happen overnight.  It’s up to us – the adults – to cultivate them over time through consistency and intentional relationship building.  Creating a psychologically safe learning environment will enable students to experience high-trust relationships and allow them to bring their full identities into these relationships.  Proactive strategies will help to reduce the likelihood of negative behaviors occurring and in turn create a more positive culture.  Proactive approaches provide students with the tools they need to make good choices both in the moment and in the future.

Topics Covered:

• Cultivating a psychologically safe environment
• Building meaningful relationships with students
• Proactive behavior management strategies

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Recognize a psychologically safe environment and create one for students
• Form more profound relationships with students
• Utilize proactive behavior management strategies to make a positive climate

Cultivating social emotional skills in staff and students starts with our personal leadership styles. In this session, participants will learn how to lead with SEL, which creates an environment where social emotional skill building can thrive for both staff and students. Participants will engage in group discussions, hands-on activities, and actionable takeaways so they can begin to lead with an SEL lens.

Topics Covered:

• The importance of social emotional skills in leadership
• Developing social emotional skills within personal leadership styles

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Coach teams through supportive SEL leadership 
• Incorporate social emotional skills into their leadership style

“Cultural relevance is the plate from which we educate our students–not just one more thing to add to our plate.” –Dr. Nicole Evans, Embracing Equity.

We work hard to be culturally relevant in our work with elementary students in afterschool programs across the country. The WINGS curriculum, organizational culture, professional development, and assessments are intentionally rooted in cultural relevance in order to:

• Support student academic excellence
• Support student cultural competence
• Facilitate critical thinking about the world around us

Topics Covered:

• The foundations of social emotional learning
• Where and how to start with culturally relevant social emotional learning

At the end of this interactive workshop, participants will be able to:

• Reflect on the role you play as a youth development professional
• Actionable steps to make a difference
• Resources to continue the work with your students

An exceptional school year requires extra care, practice, and patience for front-line educators. Working with youth – whether in the classroom or in an afterschool program – starts with adults. This session dives deep into the five core competencies of social emotional learning and provides opportunities for reflection and application in both personal and professional settings.

Topics Covered:

• Understanding the five core competencies of social emotional learning: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making
• Adult social emotional skills and perspectives, including strengths and weaknesses
• Strategies for developing social emotional skills in personal and professional life

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Explain the impact of social emotional skill development on themselves and reflect on the application of the five social emotional skills in their own lives.
• Implement 2-3 techniques for SE skill integration

Connecting with students and building trust is critical to student learning. Today, more than ever, we need to engage and build a sense of community in our classrooms and programs. This session provides an introduction to teaching practices and modeling adult skills needed to build relationships with students.

Topics Covered:

• Adult social emotional skills and perspectives
• Modeling SE skills for others thoughtfully
• Tangible rituals and routines to engage students and build relationships

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Reflect on the application of the five social emotional skills in their own lives
• Appropriately model self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, responsible decision making, and relationship skills as teachable moments
• Implement activities to intentionally foster connections among students

This session helps participants set the stage for an inclusive environment (whether in-person or virtual) where everyone belongs and kids can be the best version of themselves with our field-tested S-E-T Framework: Support, Engage, and Teach; including ways to identify and leverage “teachable moments” to reinforce social emotional skills with quality and consistency.

Topics Covered:

• Overview of social emotional learning – what it is and what the research says about the impact
• Adult social emotional skills and perspectives
• Deep dive into developing a social emotional learning culture through the WINGS S-E-T Framework including practice and application

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Explain the impact of social emotional skill development on themselves and youth and reflect on the application of the five social emotional skills in their own lives.
• Describe what a positive, supportive, and engaging culture looks, sounds, and feels like and practice ways to foster this.
•  Identify opportunities for “teachable moments” to reinforce social emotional skills.
• Develop one to two ways to integrate social emotional learning into an existing program schedule.

We all have good days and bad days where our emotions run wild – especially during the pandemic! This workshop will provide you and your staff with a comprehensive tool-kit of concrete proactive and corrective behavior management strategies you can implement the next day.

Topics Covered:

• Review of essential proactive techniques to avoid negative behaviors, and corrective behavior management strategies to de-escalate a situation once negative behavior has occurred.
• Additional strategies to add to the resource toolbox
• Practice and application

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Utilize a resource toolbox of strategies including; M.E.S.S, Disregard & Divert, G.E.T P.A.S.T, DDADA, and Positive Reinforcement.
• Incorporate behavior management strategies into existing program structure.