Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which people understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.
True North AmeriCorps is excited to increase focus on social emotional learning skills in the new program cycle starting August 2020. Reviews of social emotional learning approaches associate them with improvements in reading, writing, and math proficiency (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). Members will serve in out-of-school time programs, community centers, youth-serving agencies, and elementary schools where they will engage children with identified risk factors.
Members will receive training and hands-on experience on SEL throughout their service. This includes the use of the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA). The DEESA is a social and emotional assessment that offers “standardized, norm-referenced, strength-based measurements of the social and emotional competencies” of youth through 8th grade.
The DESSA system measures eight competencies: self-awareness, self-management, relationship skills, personal responsibility, decision making, goal-directed behavior, and optimistic thinking. Members will have access the data and a host of resources to more deeply understand the needs of youth and how to create a better learning experience. The goals of the DESSA are fairly simple and include: “helping educators plan social and emotional instruction, providing documentation of students’ social and emotional strengths and needs, and allowing users to monitor progress and evaluate child and program outcomes.”
TNAC is excited to adopt this new system as a way to track and monitor the strengths and needs of the youth that we serve as well as providing additional resources and support to our members. We’re confident this will lead to increased impact for youth in our region!
For more information on the the DESSA Comprehensive SEL System check out: About the DESSA from Aperture Education