SEL Goes to Washington (D.C.)

| By: Committee for Children

On Thursday, February 7, 2013, Committee for Children hosted a congressional briefing in our nation’s capital to educate lawmakers about the importance of social-emotional learning (SEL) and its relevance to school safety and academic success.

The interest in this briefing was high: There were 77 attendees, most of whom were House and Senate staff (very solid representation from both sides of the aisle). There were also a fair number of national education leadership folks in the room, as well as a few colleagues in the fields of SEL, Character Education, and school safety. Lots of eager interest in our topic was in evidence, likely due to top-of-mind issues such as gun control, school safety, and mental health.

Star-studded panel

Several people, who attend these types of briefings often, commented on the unusually high quality of the briefing—engaging information, very relevant to current concerns, and credible panelists. Besides myself, the panelists were Dr. Dorothy Espelage of the University of IL Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Lori Vollandt and Steve Zimmer of Los Angeles Unified School District, and Michael Searcy of Detroit Public Schools. The panel presentations were smart, to the point, and lively, and audience engagement was high.

After the briefing, we attended meetings with Senate HELP and House Education & Workforce staff, as well as several other policy makers. And although I’m happy to talk about the merits of SEL to anyone, it was especially useful to have our panelists in these meetings to answer questions, providing both the research and real-word school credibility that made our message resonate.

The missing ingredient: Funding

And what exactly was that message? We know that there is no shortage of public will to teach social-emotional skills to children in schools using evidence-based, well-integrated programs. But there is a dire shortage of policy support for funding that will allow our educators to make this so, and there is virtually no funding left to support the field in elevating best practices through randomized clinical trials.

So how do all of us, regardless of our stand on gun control, stand firmly with the children and families in Newtown? I believe we can find great common ground in the response to invest early and wisely in evidence-based social-emotional learning programs. I think we can all agree that early prevention is money well spent for something as precious and priceless as the safety of our children. For this reason we are asking Congress to support legislation such as Senator Harkin’s Successful, Safe, and Healthy Students Act, as well as sign on to Congressman Tim Ryan’s letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, asking him to include social-emotional learning in plans to address school violence.

Joan Cole Duffell is the Executive Director of Committee for Children.