News

31 Jul CSP Flourish Included in CASEL Program Guide

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) has designated Flourish: The Compassionate Schools Project Curriculum as a Promising Program for Social and Emotional Learning. Flourish is one of 14 programs in the 2024 review cycle selected for inclusion in the CASEL Guide to Effective Social and Emotional Learning Programs.

As part of their mission to help make evidence-based SEL an integral part of education from preschool through high school, CASEL evaluates SEL programs to help educators make informed choices. Programs undergo a rigorous four-stage review process over six months, during which CASEL applies a systematic framework to identify evidence-based SEL programs that have the potential for broad dissemination to schools.

This distinction from CASEL – internationally recognized as pioneers and leaders in SEL — is an honor. Further, inclusion in the CASEL Program Guide will increase visibility and support dissemination of CSP Flourish.

This notable achievement is a result of the extraordinary 10-year partnership between the Compassionate Schools Project and Jefferson County Public Schools and would not have been possible without the vision and generosity of our supporters.

…all of our efforts are unified by a commitment to evidence-based SEL to support all students’ learning and development. —CASEL

19 Jul CSP Selected to participate at the 14th Annual Music City SEL Conference in Nashville

CSP was selected to present a 1-hour session and to host an information table at the 14th Annual Music City SEL Conference in Nashville, TN on July 18, 2024. CSP Project Director Alexis Harris, JCPS Teacher Kara Cosby, and CSP Program Manager Joan Bryant facilitated an interactive session titled Compassionate Schools Project: Integrating SEL, Mindfulness, and Movement for Youth and Adult Flourishing.

The theme of this year’s Music City SEL Conference was “Integrate to Elevate: Using SEL to Level Up Focused Outcomes.”

Since the inaugural conference, diverse community partners, mental health providers, and experts on the forefront of the Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) movement have come together to provide powerful experiential learning that can transform school culture, strengthen support systems, and improve the overall success and wellness of students.

Conference attendees joined together to celebrate, highlight, and invest in work taking place in Metro Nashville Public Schools and beyond.

06 Jun CSP Director Presents at Society for Prevention Research Annual Meeting

Alexis Harris presented at the most important prevention science conference—the Society for Prevention Research (SPR) Annual Meeting in Washington DC, May 28-31, 2024.

Findings presented suggest promise in the Compassionate Schools Project and the approach it represents for helping promote SEL and aligned mindfulness and compassion skills, as well as the positive impact on important behavioral characteristics such as efficacy for social problem solving and attentional control, especially in the context of high poverty.

Alexis is the CSP Project Director and Research Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development.

POSTER ABSTRACT
Introduction:
There is a pressing need to support youth wellbeing, emphasizing the importance of universal prevention efforts in schools (U.S. Department of Education, 2021). To address this need, the Compassionate Schools Project (CSP) tested a universal elementary school wellness curriculum called Flourish that integrates social and emotional skills, mindful awareness and compassion, mindful movement, and mindsets and habits for lifelong health. Through an innovative partnership model involving university researchers/intervention developers, civic leaders, a large public school district, and various philanthropic supporters, researchers conducted a five-year longitudinal randomized control trial of Flourish. The curriculum and professional learning were intentionally grounded in mindfulness and compassion and connected with a city-wide aspiration to engage citizens in building a more compassionate community.

Methods:
The large RCT involved 45 elementary schools and over 4700 students randomly selected from schools located in a mid-sized US city and the surrounding area that serves an economically and ethnically diverse population. The sample of students was followed through two years of CSP implementation or the existing health and physical education curriculum and two years of post-formal implementation. By comparing growth over four years of time, we tested for the effect of assignment of school to CSP implementation on growth of a set of child social and emotional skills, attentional control (evidence of executive function), compassion and behavior and adjustment in school (emotional and behavioral problems, prosocial behavior, and academic engagement). We also tested for moderation of growth differences by condition by school poverty level, grade of students at outset of exposure, and student gender. Inferential analyses were based on 3-level longitudinal hierarchical linear models (HLM).

Results:
The partnership resulted in the successful continuation of the program in many of the study schools and was initiated in new schools after the research was concluded. Preliminary results of the analyses show that Flourish has significant benefits for students—including efficacy for managing social conflicts, improved classroom behavior, and increased ability to focus attention. In addition, preliminary results suggest that benefits are most evident in schools serving students from high poverty communities.

Conclusions:
These findings suggest promise in this program and the approach it represents for helping promote SEL and aligned mindfulness and compassion skills, as well as the positive impact on important behavioral characteristics such as efficacy for social problem solving and attentional control, especially in the context of high poverty.

VIEW POSTER

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zFXoElmqEpg2dZEnA52vBRZn2T1iaJCz/view

01 Jan APA’s 2023 Trends Report Features Alexis Harris on CSP, Prevention of Mental Health Issues

The American Psychological Association (APA) interviewed Compassionate Schools Project’s Alexis Harris as part of its 2023 Trends Report. The article appeared in the organization’s APA Monitor.

The following is excerpted from the article:

“We can’t wait until people are suffering to apply what we know,” said Alexis Harris, PhD, a research assistant professor of education at Youth-Nex, the University of Virginia Center to Promote Effective Youth Development, and the project director for the Compassionate Schools Project.

With Compassionate Schools, Harris and her colleagues are studying a curriculum that builds on SEL by integrating concepts of mindfulness, compassion, body awareness, healthy eating, and exercise. The study is taking place in 45 schools with some 20,000 children and provides strategies to support educator well-being as well. This kind of holistic, mind-body approach is a trend in prevention science, she added. “After decades of research, it’s evident that there are common root causes and common protective factors that underlie a variety of mental, emotional, and behavioral problems,” she said. “Starting there, we can have a broader impact.”

As the field sets its sights on broadening and strengthening its prevention efforts, there’s also a call to move away from a predominant focus on individual choices and behaviors.

“In many approaches that are focused on promoting adaptive skills and positive behavioral trajectories, a lot of responsibility is placed on the individual. We see that so much with the attention placed on self-care, for example,” Harris said. “That obscures the fact that we need to pay more attention to the conditions in the systems that individuals are functioning within.”

Read “Psychologists are rebranding the field, expanding the one-to-one therapy approach“

14 Dec JCPS Tackles Teacher Retention with Multi-Faceted, Whole-Person Approach

Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) is committed to helping its teachers remain in the classroom by addressing the often overlooked and unique pressures teachers face. One of the ways it is doing this is through its work with the Compassionate Schools Project, offering various professional development opportunities designed to support educators’ well-being. JCPS educators can search the Vector PD Tracker system to sign up for sessions of interest.

Read the full story: JCPS Tackles Teacher Retention with Multi-Faceted, Whole-Person Approach