Current Research

Be CALM in Early College High Schools

This study will evaluate the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based social-emotional learning (SEL) program called Be CALM (Cool, Attentive, Logical, and Mature). The program will be delivered in multi-tiered format within Early College high schools. These high schools provide dual enrollment in college classes to students who have been traditionally underrepresented in post-secondary education. This whole-school intervention trains educators to create safe supportive environments, build responsive relationships with students, and teach SEL skills using a mindful co-regulation approach.

School counselors will coach teachers in curriculum delivery and provide additional support to those students experiencing the greatest stress and mental health needs. Program implementation will be assessed to support future scaling and an independent evaluation will determine the impact of the program on teacher wellbeing, school climate, and students’ SEL competencies and college readiness. The ultimate goal of this project is to support post-secondary educational success for students of color and those from first-generation and low-income backgrounds. Click to view press release.

Be CALM Counselors

The Be CALM Counselors study’s purpose is to develop, refine, and pilot test an IES-funded program (Be CALM Counseling) to increase counselors’ attunement to the stress-related needs of the diverse middle school populations they serve. Stress is highly prevalent among adolescents, even more so in the present times, and disrupts students’ learning as well as their emotional wellbeing. Although many different individual and contextual factors have been shown to promote stress resilience, emotion regulation is one of the most malleable and mindfulness is the approach with the strongest evidence for strengthening emotion regulation. Mindfulness is being widely used in U.S. classrooms. However, it has had limited application within school counseling, where more intensive skills instruction could occur for those students who are most vulnerable to the effects of stress, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds and with minoritized identities.