School Social Work & Social-Emotional Learning in an All-Girls Practice Setting
By: School Social Work Net
Tags: School Social Work, Girls, Evidence Based Practice, K 12 Schools, Social Emotional Learning

Helping Our Girls Become Stronger: Programs, Partnerships, and Tools For Their SEL

Today’s girls are ‘digital natives’ (a person born or brought up during the age of digital technology [typically born after 1980] and therefore familiar with computers and the Internet from an early age), meanwhile many of the adults who work with them are ‘digital immigrants’ making us ‘just another grown-up who doesn’t understand’.

Many girls view social media as part of their social capital/currency and just like in the real world ‘cash’ is all too often king. It takes a tireless effort to educate students and families on the topic of being tech-savvy while promoting positive use and avoiding abuse. With guest speakers like Dr. Sameer Hinduja (Cyberbullying Research Center) and Zach Imwalle (Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office), we are progressively moving the needle and changing the dialogue around using social media, staying safe online and understanding how to curb misuse. One way we are working together is in combatting the propensity of unhealthy relationships and negative self-talk online. To tackle this, we created our very own CSG Wellness Instagram account — our sole mission being to disrupt students’ feeds with messages of love, confidence, and affirmation.

Additionally, it has been one of my distinct privileges in this role to be a licensed ROX (Ruling Our eXperiences) Facilitator and Coach and implement the ROX curriculum with all 8th-grade girls (in collaboration with the MS Health Curriculum). The mission of ROX is to create confident girls who control their own relationships, experiences, decisions, and futures. ROX has been integral in creating an environment where I am able to build personal, meaningful relationships with smaller cohorts of girls and create a common language foundation that we will draw on together throughout their Upper School experience. More recently, ROX launched its Institute for Research & Training driving its programming, professional development, and curriculum development forward using data from girls across the country to help inform its own decision making.

CSG has also maintained an ongoing partnership with the Youth Yoga Project (YYP) — a local non-profit that empowers youth through yoga and mindfulness practice to manage the stress of each day and make healthy choices. At the start of our collaboration, YYP staff members would come in and facilitate and oversee programs with students in the lower, middle and upper school. While this was exceptional programming and a tremendous opportunity for our girls, I felt that we needed a more sustainable (and flexible) scheduling structure. With that in mind, YYP asked that we be a part of their pilot program with a “teach the teacher” model. It was this model that allowed teachers across grade levels to go through initial training, be given access to a range of teaching resources and to implement strategies and classes within the framework of our standard school day.

We created our very own CSG Wellness Instagram account — our sole mission being to disrupt students’ feeds with messages of love, confidence and affirmation.

Finally, at CSG, an emphasis on service and community is at the heart of how we both engage and challenge our students. As the Service Coordinator, I work hard to cultivate an ethic of service and sense of community, civic and global responsibility through service-learning activities, trips, and curriculum inclusion. These service and community-based activities are designed to prepare CSG students to be informed, resourceful, responsible, compassionate, generous and, above all, active citizens in their community — whether down the street or across the world. As with most programs and initiatives, I could not facilitate all of this alone. In the areas of service-learning and civic engagement, I work closely with the grade level Deans, Student Council members, our Parent and Alumnae Associations as well as school administrative team members to coordinate logistics, network with community agencies and help supervise/facilitate on and off-campus opportunities.