Unit brings CASEL to the House of Commons

Michelle Obama and Gordon Brown squeezed in visits to the House of Commons, yesterday, around a presentation to the growing UK prevention lobby by Social Research Unit guest Roger Weissberg.

Weissberg was in London to give a series of presentations on the contribution of social and emotional learning to child outcomes.
 
The event in the House of Commons was arranged by prevention advocate Graham Allen MP and attended by his Conservative ally Iain Duncan Smith MP.
 
Prior to the Commons meeting, Weissberg attended a lunch meeting of experts interested in establishing an organisation with capabilities similar to the US Collaborative for Academic and Social, Emotional Learning or CASEL.
 
He is a founder member and president of CASEL, which provides implementation and evaluation resources for school districts across the United States operating social and emotional learning curricula.
 
The Unit's interest in CASEL's work stems from its impact on child well-being. A recently published systematic review by Weissberg and Joe Durlak of over 700 experimental studies involving 270,000 children shows that the curricula reduce conduct disorders by 10 per cent and emotional disorders by nine per cent. More dramatically, the curricula drive up academic performance by 11 per cent. These impacts were felt by all children in a school.
 
Weissberg presented in Committee Room 14 of the House of Commons. Afterwards Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his parliamentary colleagues arrived in the midst of the lastest Govrnment crisis. At the other end of the Palace of Westminster, Michelle Obama and her children were on a private visit.
 
Weissberg is in England with his daughter Elizabeth, a philosophy graduate from Yale. Today he travels to Birmingham were the Social Research Unit is supporting the City's implementation and experimental evaluation of the social and emotional learning program, PATHS. On Wednesday he is meeting polcy makers and educators in Northern Ireland.
 
Download Weissberg's PowerPoint slides in PDF format to see his presentation.