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Summary

Social Emotional Learning programs have, since their start, been successful risk-behavior prevention tactics. This episode connects the current conversation in The Magic of Adolecence, and Social Emotional Learning classes. SEL for Risk Prevention

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Overview

CASEL

SEL is divided into five main areas of competence
Self-awareness: The abilities to understand one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior across contexts.
Self-management: The abilities to manage one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations and to achieve goals and aspirations.
Social awareness: The abilities to understand the perspectives of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts.
Relationship skills: The abilities to establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships and to effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups.
Responsible decision-making: The abilities to make caring and constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions across diverse situations.
More SEL

The mediating role of self-control on the relations between adverse childhood experiences and substance use among adolescents in Uganda

Jane Namusoke, Kennedy Amone-P’Olak, Carol Chosen Nakanwagi, Henry Kibedi, Nathaniel Mayengo, Joseph Ssenyonga, and Bernard Omech

Objective: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are established risk factors for undesirable consequences in adolescence and early adulthood, including substance use and a lack of self-control. Based on the Social Bonds Theory (SBT), this study aims to expand our knowledge of the pathways from ACEs and self-control to substance use in adolescence and early adulthood.
Methods: The extent to which self-control mediates the association between ACEs and substance use was examined in a cross-sectional survey of 358 adolescents and young adults (N = 234, 65.5% girls, mean age 17.7, SD 0.58, range 15–18). Data were gathered using the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE-10) questionnaire, the Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-10), and the 10- item self-control scale to assess childhood adversity, substance use, and self- control, respectively.
Results: ACEs were widely reported and significantly associated with substance use and a lack of self-control. Self-control strongly predicted substance use, independent of ACEs. Among those reporting no ACEs, one to two, three to four, and five or more, there were significant variations in the respondents’ substance use (F(3, 400) = 12.69, p = 0.001). Self-control explained 51.2% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 41, 61%) of the associations between ACEs and substance use as assessed by linear regression.
Conclusion: Self-control is key to understanding why adolescents and young adults with a history of childhood adversity indulge in substance use. Therefore, there is a need to advocate for psychological interventions such as cognitive and behavioural therapy that have demonstrated efficacy in promoting self- control in adolescents and young adults.access article This article highlights self control as a significant predictor for substance abuse, suggesting that substance abuse can be prevented through taught methods. While ACES (or Advere Childhood Experiences) are also significant factors, these experiences cannot be prevented. As self control was seen as independently predicting substance abuse, it could potentially be focused on in a program.

A systematic review and synthesis of theories of change of school-based interventions integrating health and academic education as a novel means of preventing violence and substance use among students

Tara Tancred, Sara Paparini, G. J. Melendez-Torres, James Thomas, Adam Fletcher, Rona Campbell, and Chris Bonell

Background: Schools can play an important role in promoting health. However, many education policies and institutions are increasingly emphasising academic attainment targets, which appear to be diminishing the time available for health education lessons. Interventions that integrate both health and academic learning may present an ideal solution, simultaneously addressing health education and academic development. The theories of change underlying these interventions are therefore of interest, but are poorly studied.
Methods: A systematic review of evaluations of interventions that integrate academic and health education for reduced substance use and/or violence was carried out. As part of this, reports describing theory were assessed for quality and data extracted. Theoretical data were synthesised within and across individual interventions using reciprocal translation and meta-ethnographic line of argument synthesis to produce an overall theory of change for interventions that integrate health and academic education to prevent substance use and violence.
Results: Forty-eight reports provided theoretical descriptions of 18 interventions. An overarching theory that emerged was that eroding ‘boundaries’ at multiple and mutually reinforcing levels—by integrating academic and health education, by transforming relationships between teachers and students, by generalising learning from classrooms to the wider school environment and by ensuring consistent messages from schools and families—is intended to lead to the development of a community of engaged students oriented towards pro-social behaviour and away from substance use, violence and other risk behaviours.
Conclusions: Eroding ‘boundaries’ between health and academic education, teachers and students, classrooms and the wider school and schools and families were seen to be the most critical to establishing new frameworks of family, classroom or school organisation that are conducive to promoting both academic and social-emotional outcomes. Whether such interventions are feasible to implement and effective in reducing risk behaviours will be examined in other reports arising from the review. access article "In particular, eroding boundaries between health and academic education, teachers and students, classrooms and the wider school and schools and families were seen to be the most critical to establishing new frameworks of family, classroom or school organisation that are conducive to promoting both academic and social-emotional outcomes." (p.19)
"behaviours such as smoking, drug use or violence might occur not merely through deficits but as a result of rationally chosen and socially sanctioned decisions, albeit perhaps within a context of limited choices." (p.19)

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