Committee for Children Launches Out-of-School Time SEL Program with Support from The Wallace Foundation
SEATTLE, March 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Committee for Children (CFC) announced today that it is creating a new social-emotional learning (SEL) program for after-school care, summer camps, and other learning environments beyond the classroom, through support provided by The Wallace Foundation. A grant of $836,500 from Wallace will contribute to CFC's efforts to launch an out-of-school-time (OST) adaptation of their award-winning Second Step program during the 2019–2020 school year.
"We're extremely thankful to The Wallace Foundation for this important opportunity to address the need for social and emotional learning in out-of-school settings," said Joan Cole Duffell, Committee for Children's executive director. "Though our organization reaches millions of children annually with research-based SEL curricula taught in schools across the US and around the world, we know that children's social-emotional development is enriched far beyond the classroom. For SEL to make its greatest impact, this vital area of learning should take place in all facets of a child's life. We have committed ourselves to positively transforming the social-emotional well-being of 100 million children annually by 2028, and this investment in out-of-school time programming will be integral to reaching that goal."
CFC's research-based Second Step program currently reaches 14 million children annually, from preschoolers to middle schoolers. In recent years, the demand for an OST program has grown as many OST providers have adapted the program—which is designed for school settings—to support children's social-emotional development out of school. Although this interest has been encouraging, CFC knows that out-of-school time contexts differ meaningfully from school contexts and demand different instructional approaches. To meet these context-specific needs and catalyze broad impact, the organization is developing a program that will focus on research-based activities, group discussion, games, and projects to support SEL in OST environments...