Session: Social-Emotional Learning Program Adaptation: Prevalence, Nature, and Rationale to Ensure Healthy Development for All Youth (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

The American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare created the Grand Challenges Initiative to “identify ambitious yet achievable goals for society that mobilize the profession, capture the public’s imagination, and require innovation and breakthroughs in science and practice to achieve” (Uehara, et al., 2014). The AASWSW declared one Grand Challenge to be “Ensuring Healthy Development for All Youth.” This Grand Challenge aims to reduce the incidence of behavioral health problems by 20% within a decade (Hawkins et al., 2015). To achieve population-wide reductions in behavioral health problems, we must “scale up” effective preventive interventions in routine settings.

Many universal evidence-based practices exist to prevent emotional and behavioral problems, but wide-scale implementation has been slow (Owens et al., 2014). Social emotional learning (SEL) programs (Fagan, Hawkins, & Shapiro, 2015), can be cost-effective to implement and, when implemented well, have been shown to be effective in achieving healthy developmental outcomes (e.g., Greenberg et al., 2003). The “fit” or appropriateness of interventions in routine settings is one of the most common barriers to adoption and successful implementation of effective prevention programs (Lyon et al., 2014). To improve “fit” some level of adaptation is common (Moore, Bumbarger, & Cooper, 2013; Wiltsey Stirman et al., 2014). However, tensions exist between adaptation and maintaining intervention fidelity (Castro et al., 2004, 2010; Lau, 2006). Little research has examined the extent, nature, and rationale for intervention adaptations or their impact on program outcomes (Wiltsey Stirman et al., 2014).

The first paper uses mixed methods to examine the prevalence of teacher adaptation in a district-wide, school-based SEL intervention. Results indicate that teachers almost always adapted the intervention. Teacher rationales for making modifications was most often related to improving the appropriateness of the intervention for their population of students.

The second paper investigates the nature of teacher adaptations by classifying their reasons for modifications to a SEL intervention in accordance with three published taxonomies: The Moore, Bumbarger, & Cooper (MBC; 2013) Model; The Castro, Barrera, & Martinez (CBM; 2004) Model; and The Ecological Validity Model (EVM; Bernal, Bonilla, & Bellido, 1995). Although each model provided a valuable perspective on adaptation classification, the development of a comprehensive and reliable adaptation measure would help standardize adaptation research, and clarify the relationship between adaptations and outcomes.

The third paper presents a theoretical rationale for modifications to SEL interventions. A comprehensive review of the published literature on SEL programming, guided by a colorblind racism framework, led to a critique of existing SEL interventions and the development of a conceptual model that incorporates race and culture into SEL program development and adaptation. Implications for the future directions in SEL implementation research will be presented.

Collectively, these papers suggest that adaptations to SEL programs are prevalent and are often done to improve intervention “fit.” No single adaptation framework fully classifies the range of reported adaptations. A culturally-centered conceptual model may help us study and improve SEL programs to meet the Grand Challenge of ensuring healthy development for all youth.