Engaging Your School Community in Social-Emotional Learning

by Suzanne Sannwald

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is among the top educational buzzwords of recent years, but when looking at what it encompasses, I would argue that school libraries have historically and consistently been one of the strongest supporters and sources of SEL in our schools for a long time. The branding of libraries is generally around literacy, and when trying to demonstrate our impact, we typically find ways to tie our programs to gains in academic achievement, which is understandable since test scores do hold capital in our educational systems. However, from my own experience, some of the most powerful contributions of my own school library have been those related to students' general wellbeing, their sense of belonging and self-discovery.

SEL can seem like a nebulous topic since it encompasses so much, but frameworks like CASEL's 5 Core Competencies (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making) provide a helpful foundation for approaching SEL. CASEL's website (https://casel.org/) has a number of resources for exploring SEL in greater depth, including an interactive guide for implementing SEL schoolwide (https://schoolguide.casel.org/). As defined by CASEL, a schoolwide approach to SEL "engages the entire school community in creating caring, motivating, and equitable learning environments that promote social, emotional, and academic growth." It "relies on the ongoing, collaborative effort of all staff, teachers, students, families, out-of-school time partners, and other community partners," and one of the first steps for implementation includes establishing an SEL team.

CASEL's guide for assembling an SEL team (https://schoolguide.casel.org/focus-area-1a/create-a-team/assemble-an-sel-team/) suggests people to consider when creating a team and this includes mention of teachers, non-instructional staff such as "counselors, social workers, nurses, deans," as well as "other support staff such as security/safety officers, classroom assistants, clerks, and lunchroom and recess staff." While these examples are likely intended to be a non-exhaustive starting point for schools to consider, I am nonetheless disappointed that librarians are not also included. This makes me think about the work that we need to do as school library professionals to more clearly connect our programs to SEL in a public-facing way. After all, our school libraries hold enormous potential to collaborate as part of an SEL team.

When exploring the ways to collaborate around SEL, one place to begin is by intentionally mapping existing elements of our school library programs to schoolwide SEL efforts. These elements include everything from how we support relationship-building and provide safe spaces to how we approach collection development with inclusivity in mind and enable services such as bibliotherapy. To read more about whole-program contributions to SEL, check out the following articles:

• Mary Francis Zilonis and Chris Swerling's "On Common Ground. What Does Social and Emotional Learning Look Like in Your Library? – Part I" lists some basic ways to make the library "socially and emotionally friendly."

• Dr. Meghan Harper's "Trauma-Informed School Libraries" addresses the related area of trauma-informed education and how libraries can incorporate practices through "facility design, collection development, programming, and using trauma-sensitive communication."

• Diane Chen's "Safe and Self-Actualized: Addressing Student Needs" unpacks the idea of creating a safe space and how libraries can meet a variety of students needs from physiological and emotional needs to those related to esteem and academics, self-actualization, and civic engagement.

In addition to contributing at a program-level to schoolwide SEL efforts, there are opportunities to collaborate more specifically with counseling and mental health partners.

• Graeme Boyd's "An Unlikely Partnership Between School Librarian and School Counselor" highlights collaboration between the school counselor and the school librarian.

• Gina Seymour's "Compassionate Collaborations" shares examples of how libraries can help school communities process grief, bereavement, and crisis. The book chapter also describes programming such as art therapy and maker activities related to building empathy, compassion, and social justice.

True schoolwide SEL implementation, however, is not just the work of counselors and mental health professionals just as literacy is not the work of librarians and English teachers alone. When collaborating instructionally with classroom teachers, we can find ways to integrate SEL across subject areas and grade levels.

• Liz Deskins's "Designing a Collaboration with a Focus on Mental Health" highlights Anita Cellucci's collaborative work with an English teacher to "consciously address mental health in the curriculum."

• Barb Stripling's "Developing the Whole Child Through Inquiry" considers how inquiry skills align with SEL competencies.

• Chris Bryner's "Integrating SEL in the Classroom," offers a concrete strategy of the 3Rs (review, reflection, and recognition) to support SEL with any learning activity through metacognition.

As a final consideration, when thinking about the social and emotional needs on our school campuses, Tara Foor's "And Then There Was Me," importantly reminds us that we must prioritize caring for staff members as well, including ourselves as school library professionals. In fact, collaboration is not just a means for furthering SEL for our students, but it can be an opportunity for librarians to care for ourselves by ensuring we are not isolated.

I would love to hear about your school library's work with SEL. Please share your ideas by sending me a message!