About CASEL » Mision & Strategic Plan

Vision

To promote children's success in school and life.

We envision a world where families, schools, and communities work together to promote children's success in school and life and to support the healthy development of all children. In this vision, children and adults are engaged life-long learners who are self-aware, caring and connected to others, and responsible in their decision-making. Children and adults achieve to their fullest potential, and participate constructively in a democratic society.

Core Beliefs

1. We have a responsibility to help children to become knowledgeable, responsible, healthy, caring, and contributing members of society.
2. Rigorous science provides an essential foundation for effective educational policies and practices; a core aspect of rigorous science is to ground development and testing in real-life settings and conditions.
3. Effective, integrated SEL programming is the most promising educational reform to promote the academic success, engaged citizenship, healthy actions, and well-being of children.
4. Cross-disciplinary collaboration produces the richest insights, biggest impacts, and best outcomes in work on behalf of children.
5. We strive for excellence in all our work. We have high expectations for ourselves, and we encourage and expect the best from others.
6. CASEL leadership, staff, and collaborators must model social and emotional competence and ethical behavior.

Mission

To establish social and emotional learning as an essential part of education

Goals & Objectives

Goal 1: Advance the science of social and emotional learning.

• Publish reviews on the theory and research-based foundations of social and emotional learning.
• Establish strategies and tools to guide and assess system-wide SEL implementation.
• Establish assessment procedures to measure student, educator and school outcomes.
• Establish evidence-based strategies for developing educational leaders prepared to implement SEL.

Goal 2: Expand integrated, evidence-based SEL practice.

• Partner with other organzations to create, field test, refine, and broadly implement high-quality professional development and on-site technical assistance models.
• Serve as an international clearinghouse for information on SEL science, practices, and policies.
• Establish Illinois as state for fostering the implementation of widespread, integrated SEL programming.

Goal 3: Strengthen the field and impact of SEL.

• Strengthen CASEL's organizational capacity to lead the field of SEL.
• Establish the cross-field and cross-discipline collaborations necessary to strengthen and grow the field of SEL.
• Create and implement strategies to support the development of a new generation of SEL researchers and practitioners.

» Download a copy of the complete 2007-2011 strategic plan