Launch of Peer-to-Peer State Collaboratives
The purpose of the Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety (Center) is to provide technical assistance to support states and districts in the implementation of social and emotional learning (SEL) evidence-based programs and practices. The Center will enhance the capacity of (1) State educational agencies (SEAs) to support their local educational agencies (LEAs) and (2) LEAs to support their schools. To help enact this purpose, the Center has launched two peer-to-peer collaborative opportunities for state educational agencies (SEAs).
The collaboratives serve 10 states that are working together to address major needs related to alignment and coherence of SEL and other whole child strategies and initiatives, with a focus on two themes: (1) strategic communications and (2) student well-being and safety.
The Strategic Communications collaborative focuses on how to most effectively communicate the coherence and alignment of SEL and other whole child initiatives both across state agencies and, in particular, to the field. The Student Well-being and Safety collaborative focuses on strengthening the alignment and coherence, including across state agencies, of initiatives related to SEL, mental health, school safety, and other components of supporting the whole child.
Over two years, the collaboratives will yield participant-designed and -tested tools and resources that will then be disseminated more broadly to the field.
In the collaboratives’ kick-off convening in February 2020, members of each states’ core team had the opportunity to:
- Learn more about the work and goals of the peer-to-peer collaboratives
- Explore their state’s context and define their team’s problem of practice
- Identify points of connection with other states
- Articulate success for the collaborative and for their own team’s work
- Provide Center staff with early feedback on two upcoming tools that Center staff are developing
Participants also had the opportunity to meet their technical assistance (TA) liaisons, whom they’ll continue to meet with virtually as their teams advance the state’s work in between in-person convenings.
Update: For more on the peer-to-peer collaboratives’ work, read about their August 2020 convening and March 2021 convening.
