Student, family, and community engagement is an important ingredient to foster students' social, emotional, and academic development (SEAD). In this brief, the importance and impact of meaningful engagement--building personal relationships, trust, and mutual respect between students and their educators, families, and communities--is described, and…

Peer helping is a system of delivering service to young people who do not seek it from traditional sources. The peer helping program teaches young people to help fellow students solve personal problems, to demonstrate positive social skills, and to serve as role models in social situations. Training, which initially uses discussion and group…

This guide presents an advisory program for middle schools. The program is designed for groups of 10 to 15 students meeting twice a week; the advisors should be adults from within the school (teachers, guidance counselors, administrators, etc.). The program has four goals: (1) to promote students' sense of belonging within the school; (2) to…

A racial identity development model for African-American and white college students is presented. It consists of five developmental stages (naive, acceptance, resistance, redefinition, internalization) and separate descriptions of the nature of each stage for African Americans and whites. Implications for teaching and administration are discussed.…

Children and adolescents who enjoy healthy growth and development along six primary pathways are the students who learn well and achieve success in school and in life. But children from poorly functioning families and impoverished social networks too often find themselves without adequate preparation and support for the academic challenges that…