Implementing Fairness & Belonging
Social Emotional Awareness & Ownership:
Believing in Yourself & Believing in Each Other
3 Core Areas for Learning:
Beyond Personal Vision – Personal Belief Statement
What do we want to think, feel and believe about ourselves? Throughout life our jobs will change, even
our careers will change, certainly the world around us will vastly evolve, so having a specific vision statement
for yourself is important but if it does not include what you want to believe about yourself then it doesn’t help
support you completely as a whole person. Your values, your motivations, your emotional needs, etc. are all
there in every moment. As such they need to be owned in a way that empowers and validates them as well as
yourself. Once you have a personal belief statement, getting a personal Vision Statement gets much easier as
making choices easier gains from the boost of more personal clarity and permission to know and start to own
your voice.
Self-Presence– Having Resilience & Connection for yourself in a stressful & disconnected environment
Being able to be more present within a given relationship, situation, environment and with yourself is
vastly powerful. Most of us don’t want to be fully present for stressful, new, uncomfortable, challenging or
painful experiences. But by having a few Awareness & Resilience Tools, you can know that you have support to
be there for yourself. Knowing tools and techniques means that you are there for yourself and thus are not
just better equipped to face fears but work with them.
Social Emotional Dexterity – Having emotional empathy to work/play with others more easily, effectively
and productively is not only very powerful, it is emotionally gratifying.
Finding, creating, maintaining and growing meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships, groups
and communities is a key aspect of way it means to be human. This path of learning is filled with a lot of
experiences but not necessarily filled with a lot of conscious choices. By learning and practicing relationship
tools you can start to see how you can find being with groups as mutually positive way to grow and express
who you are as well as learn and create together. Having a few key skills, means being able to move through
group dynamics with a greater sense of you being a part of the whole as well as you being able to have more
kinds of positive connections with others.
Key Goal: The more someone feels they are safe, belong, valued and are enough to contribute, the more
Presence they have for any emotional experiences and choices that they will face in life. The aim is to give
permission, develop practice and facilitate ownership of the tools to create greater Presence. This allows
and empowers students to graduate with the skills as they see them as something they own for themselves.
Tools Based on: Mindfulness, Envisioning, DBT, Success Planning, Goal Implementation Strategies & Tactics,
Personal Organization & Routine Development, Measurable Goal Creation Techniques, Best Practices for
Creating Personal Vision Statements, Effective Communication, and Culture of Compassion Best Practices
Social Emotional Awareness & Ownership: Believing in Yourself & Believing in Each Other
Recommendation: After school multi-part workshop series
Options (Each could be a standalone choice or they could be a progressive series):
Stick a toe in the water – Each Core Competency is a single Intro style class of 2 hours. After completing each
class and then again for completing all 3 classes, students get certificate. Just by getting an introduction to
tools and concepts, it creates a high degree of permission for these competencies, skills and tools.
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Take-aways include: Mindfulness Skills Introduction, Personal Belief Statement, Tool Kit Workbook,
Personal Social Dexterity Plan Tools, Compassion Skills Introduction and Awarded Certification
Incentive Process: Mandatory Attendance with Incentive for Active/Complete Participation (e.g.
coupon for homework grade forgiveness)
Hands on Practice – Each core area is a 3-4 session class of 2 hours each that includes a small project. By
having some practice it creates comfort and increases confidence to start to own the tools. The multi-class
session enforces that students are supported, they are there sharing the experiences together (feel they are
part of something bigger than themselves that they belong to) and can have a chance to even start to play
with the tools).
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Take-aways include: Mindfulness Skills, Personal Vision Statement, Personal Belief Statement,
Resume, Personal Goals & Supports Plan, Personal Social Dexterity Plan Tools with Feedback,
Compassion Skills Tool Kit Workbook Completion and Awarded Certification.
Incentive Process: Choice of Attendance with Incentive for Active/Complete Participation (e.g. coupon
for homework grade forgiveness), Formal Awards Ceremony (Students give short speeches,
Instructor/Principle and other preside over certification awarding)
Building Personal Ownership - Each core area is a 6 to 8 session class of 2 hours each that includes both
individual and group projects. The success of the participating students is elevated to a leadership status
project in the school as they are encouraged to practice out what they are learning in their daily lives with
results recorded and reported to all. School is formally behind them as an Initiative that is vital (This is where
the Authority says to the students – we need you to help us and help us all so we have to do this together).
There personal accomplishments and group accomplishments are shared with the school at various levels. The
students then gain a very deep confident and more natural level of ownership of the skills and thus become
advocates and inspirational in their interactions with others and for themselves.
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Take-aways include: Mindfulness Skills, Personal Vision Statement, Personal Belief Statement,
Resume, Personal Goals & Supports Plan, Personal Social Dexterity Plan with Feedback, Tool Kit
Workbook Completion, Custom Personal Implementation Plan, Compassion Skills, New School Student
Group Project and Group Awarded Certification.
Incentive Process: Choice of Attendance with Incentive for Active/Complete Participation (e.g. coupon
for homework grade forgiveness), Formal Awards Ceremony (Students give short speeches,
Instructor/Principle and other preside over certification awarding), Award of Distinction from District,
Leadership positions developed/enacted, passion-project status hub for students, staff, parents and
community supporters (think local donors and businesses), Social Media Story level vs social media
blurb, more
Social Emotional Awareness & Ownership:
Believing in Yourself & Believing in Each Other
Value:
For every level of participation, students will make gains that they can actually use in on-going daily life as well
as be able to have a specific accomplishment that can be included on a resume, college application or more.
They learn they have the right, knowledge and skills to be able to create and effectively work with the realty
they are in. Permission to “Believe in Yourself” moves from being a Cat Poster Phrase into feeling truly
invested into. When someone feels like they are really cared about and that their contribution and
participation in that process is valid, they feel special, worthy and ultimately like they securely belong because
they have an important role to play in life too. When students feel like they matter and what they have to
offer the world matters, they will care about themselves, others and the greater world around them.
Improvements in students grades, participation in school activities/clubs, seeking/creating new opportunities,
making new and more relationships and engaging in more plans for future possibilities are all possible.
Students can gain greater personal well-being, resilience, confidence and have a stronger personal voice/selfadvocacy. Students can relate easier to others and form greater, deeper and more emotionally enriching
relationships.
Many goals for the program are long, long-term gains which can be difficult for seeing immediate measurable
improvements. However, there are several measures that can be used to track impacts of the program:
Measurement:
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Before & 6 Month After Community Survey
Track Class Participants:
o Grades
o Number of Engagements in Formal Groups
o Before / After Survey
o 6 Month After Survey
More difficult to measure are things that tend to stay in the dark and are not typically measured to begin with
like bullying, sexual harassment, misconduct, and lack of engagement (student may be physically present but
not fully emotionally engaged). However doing Before/After Survey with social /emotional measures on group
attitudes is easy to accomplish. 6 Month post survey with results published publicly ideally.
Social Emotional Awareness & Owenship:
Believing in Yourself & Believing in Each Other
Setting Up For Program Success:
Get stakeholder involvement:
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Have staff be Positively included in outcomes (this should not just be another “project” but show how
the program is designed to make their students more confident and committed, so their
input/suggestions/feedback on its success is needed, critical and welcome.)
Have student leadership group be involved to get feedback on how best to implement program and get
their input/suggestions/feedback as needed, critical and welcome.
Have a parent group be involved to get feedback on how best to implement program and get their
input/suggestions/feedback as needed, critical and welcome.
By taking staff, parent and especially student feedback and/or support the program now has the
support of those whom it is designed to impact.
Have program have Authority Champion(s) (Board Member/Superintendent): be a face to Program and
introduce meetings/give the formal blessing so to speak.
Piloting the program at 1 school to ensure the kinks are worked out before rolling out program to all schools.
Promote program through all district and school existing channels.
At launch be transparent as much as possible and promotional about the program. Let parents and students
know you listened to them in survey’s and are responding to the needs, desires and concerns.
Engage the video production club to make a documentary of the process of program as an example how to
deepen potential program reach even if someone doesn’t step foot into a workshop.
Use aspects of the program for social media, promotional and group awareness purposes. This program helps
support School Board, Superintendent, School Staff, Parents and Students in complementary ways. When the
tide comes in all boats in the harbor rise up.
From feather in the cap to genuine feel good there are many ways this program can serve a school district.
Also having programs like this gives a district a platform for a bigger conversation whether locally or greater.
Think about how the club school where students sold cookies to girls for 80 cents and to boys for a dollar got
national notice because they were able to illustrate the gender pay gap powerfully.