SEL in 5 – Summer of SEL

Read this past month's digest of SEL leadership insights.

After a short break, we are back with a July edition focused on continuing students' social-emotional development over the summer.

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3 SEL Leadership Thoughts

Summer break offers a unique opportunity to weave social-emotional learning into everyday family activities, transforming routine moments into powerful lessons in empathy, resilience, and self-awareness.

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Educators can empower parents to extend social-emotional learning at home by providing simple, practical strategies that turn everyday interactions into opportunities for emotional growth and understanding.

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• Summer offers an ideal time for students to engage in nature-based activities that enhance SEL skills like mindfulness, teamwork, and emotional regulation, fostering a deeper connection to themselves and the world around them.

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2 Quotes from SEL Leaders

“The beating heart of effective SEL programs are relationships—and strong relationships undergird stable mental health. An environment well infused with SEL promotes and supports thriving. But there is a limit to what we can reasonably expect from teaching SEL skills, and in some cases they carry wide, perhaps outsized expectations, especially when it comes to treating mental illness, which is distinct from mental health.” – Robert F. Sherman

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“Many of our students, despite their resilience, face immense challenges beyond the scope of conventional SEL strategies. For example, a child raised in an environment filled with violence and neglect may find it difficult to relate to SEL activities that presume stable family structures and access to emotional support.” – Clementina Jose

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1 Question to Reflect On

In what ways do you aspire to align your daily actions with your deepest values and beliefs this summer?

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If you enjoyed that, please consider sharing SEL in 5 with others.

Until next month,

Nick Woolf
​Author of SEL in 5
Founder of Inside SEL

p.s. here’s what else I’m reading and listening to:

• By Some Measures, Students’ Well-Being Has Been Stable for a Decade, Study Shows

• Building Your Staff’s Emotional Intelligence

• Continuing SEL During Summer Break

• Getting Help Online: How Young People Find, Evaluate, and Use Mental Health Apps, Online Therapy, and Behavioral Health Information

• Implicit SEL Strategies That Support Academics

• Kids Say They’re ‘Fine,’ But Parents Worry About Enough Mental Health Support

• How an MTSS Can Support Anti-Bullying Initiatives in Schools

• Putting the “social” back into SEL—and why that matters now

• Social-Emotional Learning Strategies Don't Work for Every Student. Here's What Does.

• Social-Emotional Learning Works. But It Cannot Replace Mental Illness Care.

• Strengthening School Connectedness to Increase Student Success

• Taking stock of student mental health

• What Does the Research Say About SEL & Academic Integration?

• When Interventions Aim at Relationships, Academics and Attendance Improve