We provide coaching and professional development to support systemic SEL implementation and to help your staff adapt SEL practices.  We have recommendations for complementary SEL products that will meet your needs and ensure that all of your SEL, PBIS, restorative justice, and discipline  initiatives work together, seamlessly, for your staff and students. We can also help you create a multi-year strategy that supports your SEL adoption.

“You can’t teach what you yourself don’t have.” The truth of the matter is that the importance of Social and Emotional Learning needs to be held by all the adults who hope to model and inspire the students. Unfortunately, staff dynamics can be a barrier to successful school climate changes. Too often, student behavior is a function of the teacher dysfunction. Dovetail Learning is an invaluable resource for adult development that makes the difference. Being honest while having authentic and safe professional relationships is critical in school success. We invite you to have the courage to grow with us.

A partnership with Dovetail Learning helps simplify and support your process for meeting student needs. Evaluate your positive discipline systems, align your site initiatives, and create agreements that will help you move forward with vision and purpose. Learn about how you and your school can use a continuous improvement model to effectively meet student needs. Within the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) there is an explicit emphasis on “the practice of providing high-quality instruction and interventions matched to student need, monitoring progress frequently to make decisions about changes in instruction or goals, and applying child response data to important educational decisions” (Batsche et al., 2005) Dovetail Learning coaching and professional development takes educational theory and grounds it in simple, transparent practice for your school site.

PBIS, as a framework, has many interpretations, versions, and levels of implementation, but a clear Tier 1 Universal or “common language” is the foundation of the work. Our new, open-educational resources, We Are Resilient, is the perfect evolution of what has been a powerful and pervasive framework for schools in improving school climates. However, as time moves forward, our understanding of best practices change, and, therefore, programs need to evolve to meet those emerging needs. We Are Resilient elegantly leverages existing school structures/ practices and can be the perfect uplift and modification of the existing work you and your staff have already done. We Are Resilient strengthens and supports what you already do! The difference is that it supports the most essential element of Tier 1 Emotional, Social school success, the adult education.

Students (and staff) who have experienced trauma may become triggered into a “freeze, flight or fight.” response that destroys their ability to listen , let alone learn, and disrupts the classroom. Too often, educational systems and practices reinforce those triggers, and/or misread trauma symptoms as learning or behavioral issues. Schools need a different approach that help students be learning-ready. Help your staff become trauma-informed and then use their knowledge to create practical system change that transforms your school into a healing community.

Trauma-transformed behavioral health management practices for student wellness. Our current discipline system too often over-identifies and has a bias toward–almost rewarding–negative behaviors that disrupt the classroom. While creating “compliant children” may seem like a good goal, compliance does not equate to “learning-ready children” who are emotionally healthy and understand how to make good choices in many contexts. Instead, we want to create schools where children learn from their mistakes and self-management emerges from within. We help your staff respond to the much needed paradigm shift from ‘behavioristic policy and practices’ to a more humanistic approach. Through stronger relationships, help children develop internal capacities for self-management.

Within the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) there is an explicit emphasis on “the practice of providing high-quality instruction and interventions matched to student need, monitoring progress frequently to make decisions about changes in instruction or goals, and applying child response data to important educational decisions” (Batsche et al., 2005) Dovetail Learning emphasizes that ‘data’ should act as a ‘blinking light’ to help indicate areas of deeper inquiry in the pursuit of trying to understanding the whole child and how to best support them. We can help your staff see how SEL assessment helps them, and our partnership with Aperture Ed allows us to recommend the DESSA mini as an easy, effective and teacher-friendly tool that allows for early identification and intervention for students.

Let’s face it, administrators often do not get the support and professional development they need to be successful. Turnover in key leadership positions is a problem for school improvement. Initiatives come and go, not because of the program effectiveness, but rather as the logical consequence of inconsistent leadership and priority setting. Principals are often isolated and need coaching, perspective, and support for all of the emotionally difficult roles that they play in a community. Dovetail Learning can be a safe support system for your leaders, coaching them in human development through a non-evaluative approach.

• Supporting the Whole Teacher (pdf)
• Power of Student-Teacher Relationships
• 5 Ways to Teach Your Kids Empathy, According to a Neuroscientist
• A Parent’s Resource Guide to Social and Emotional Learning

• Assessment Considerations According to Dovetail (pdf)
• CA Guiding SEL Principles (pdf)
• Physical Impact of Trauma (pdf)
• Educators Social and Emotional Skills Vital to Learning (pdf)
• Ready to Lead: A National Principal Survey on How Social and Emotional Learning Can Prepare Children and Transform Schools (pdf)
• Interactive ACEs Website – Infographics and information from the CDC