Event Date
Event Description
Positive Action is a leading social emotional learning program with a simple philosophy that explains the importance—or why—to do positive actions: you feel good about yourself when you do positive actions and there’s a positive way to do everything. It emphasizes that doing positive actions helps you to feel good about yourself, which is something we all want and is motivating. The philosophy is carried throughout six unit concepts across the Pre-K–12 curriculum as well as the site-wide climate development, counseling, and family components.
Recognized as a SELect Model with CASEL, Positive Action produces sharp improvements in prosocial skills, mental health (decreased depression and anxiety) and physical health (decreased obesity), and reductions in substance use and other problem behaviors (bullying, violence, dropping out), while improving academics (reading and math scores). Its success comes from teaching what positive actions are for the whole child: physical, intellectual, social and emotional areas; how to do them and understanding why it is important to practice them in all areas.
The research surrounding these outcomes has been determined to meet the highest levels of rigor not only by CASEL but also by ESSA’s standards of evidence (Tier 1–Strong), US Department of Education What Works Clearinghouse, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and others. For more than 20 years, Positive Action has worked with out-of-school time providers to prepare our youth for success in life. They have found the program’s philosophy and its materials, combined with implementation flexibility compliment and streamline their entire program.
This session presented by Dianne Derricott will show attendees how the evidence-based Positive Action program supports the whole child and why it works for out-of-school time.