Part of the SMART Moves suite of programs, Emotional Wellness helps young people develop foundational social-emotional skills. Progressing through 10 sequential sessions in three age groups, participants build a personal toolbox for self-management and coping.
Youth will apply their coping strategies to navigate social scenarios.
Unit 3: Social Awareness
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Overview of SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness
In order to enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens, Boys & Girls Clubs focuses on three priority outcome areas: Academic Success, Healthy Lifestyles, and Good Character and Citizenship.
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness is a targeted program in BGCA’s Health and Wellness core program area that supports Healthy Lifestyles. It builds the foundational social-emotional and health skills that will enable youth to make healthy decisions. People with better social-emotional skills report participating in fewer risk behaviors, including substance use and smoking.iii To address this, successful prevention programs should focus on building the social-emotional skills that serve as protective factors in youth and support them in avoiding risk behavior. Programs should focus specifically on self-control, emotional awareness, communication and problem-solving.iii
Many health programs only identify and address risk and protective factors that are most associated with a young person’s ability to avoid risky behavior. This version of SMART Moves uses a health-promotion approach, which is focused on also building attitudes and skills that support healthy decision-making in young people. This new approach incorporates youth voice and choice in their ability to make healthy decisions.
SMART Moves is a suite of health promotion programs, focused on building the key attitudes and skills necessary for youth to make decisions about their health. Although health education is typically considered a school-based topic, health education requirements, content and quality vary amongst school districts. Some of the biggest gaps in content are related to risk behaviors such as substance use, tobacco use and sexual health.iv This means Boys & Girls Clubs and Youth Centers can play an important role in providing the knowledge and skills related to these specific health topics and help youth practice healthy decision-making. SMART Moves bridges this gap by providing asset-based health promotion content aligned with the most important social-emotional skills necessary for healthy decision-making. This is reflected in the name of the program: SMART is an acronym for Skills Mastery and Resilience Training.
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness is one in a suite of programs that can be used to help youth develop healthy decision-making attitudes and skills. Each program resource reflects contemporary youth development best practices in a flexible format that allows Clubs to customize learning to the needs and interests of their youth and communities. SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness should be implemented before SMART Moves: Core, which should be implemented before any of the SMART Moves Modules. These program resources are described below.
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness
This targeted program focuses on positive coping strategies that build three cognitive-behavior skills most linked to helping youth avoid negative thought patterns and negative behaviors. These skills are self-regulation, impulse control and stress management. Participating youth will build an effective toolbox for self-management and coping. Once they master these foundational skills, youth will be ready to apply the knowledge and practice the behaviors covered in SMART Moves: Core.
SMART Moves: Core
This targeted health promotion program focuses on building social-emotional skills such as effective communication, decision-making and refusal skills. As such, the program addresses many of the risk and protective factors that may determine whether young people engage in risky health behaviors such as e-cigarette and opioid use.
The goal of SMART Moves: Core is to influence attitudes and teach essential skills that enable youth to make healthy decisions about risk behaviors. As a result of participation, youth will be able to:
Create a positive view of their personal future
Apply decision-making skills to health behaviors
Use effective communication skills to talk about health behaviors
Demonstrate resistance skills to avoid peer pressure
Analyze media influence on self-image and health behavior
Access and process health information online
SMART Moves Modules
SMART Moves Modules cover specific health behaviors; participants use and apply the skills from SMART Moves: Core. These modules dive deeply into the health behavior and risks associated with the behavior, and build the knowledge, attitudes and skills of youth to avoid the behavior.
Health and Wellness Core Program Area
Health and Wellness programs and initiatives provide opportunities for youth to focus explicitly on building social-emotional skills; these skills include their ability to foster positive relationships with themselves and others, regulate emotions and solve problems. In addition, youth build knowledge, attitudes and skills in healthy decision-making by building social-emotional skills most closely linked to healthy decision-making, and then explore a range of health topics and behaviors, including substance use, sexual behavior and violence. Targeted programs and high-yield activities in this area are linked to the Healthy Lifestyles priority outcome area.
Health and Wellness Outcome Statement: Youth will build resilience and health skills to make informed decisions about their own health, leading to positive health outcomes. Youth development practices that support teaching and learning are core to the quality of Health and Wellness programs. Effective Health and Wellness programs, when facilitated with high-quality youth development practices, help youth develop the attitudes, behaviors and skills needed to make healthy decisions about their own wellness.
Health and Wellness Attitudes and Skills: In order to make healthy decisions, youth need to build not only attitudes and skills related to health behaviors, but also social-emotional skills. All Health and Wellness programs, including those in the SMART Moves suite, are designed to build the social-emotional skills most closely aligned with healthy decision-making and positive health outcomes.
Healthy Decision-Making Attitudes and Skills
Media Literacy
Analyzing media for accuracy and impact on self-image
Positive Health Beliefs
Belief in the importance of avoiding risky health behaviors
Positive View of Future
Having high aspirations for the future
Resistance Skills
Resisting negative peer pressure and unhealthy situations
Health Communication
Health Communication
Social-Emotional Skills
Collaboration With Peers
Working together toward shared goals with youth
Communication
Sharing information both verbally and non-verbally and listening well to others
Conflict Management and Resolution
Developing solutions to conflict
Empathy
Ability to understand and share in the feelings of others
Evaluating
Process used to make informed decisions and identify appropriate options
Identifying Emotions
Recognizing and expressing feelings
Identifying and Solving Problems
Noticing problems and working to find a solution
Impulse Control
Controlling the desire to react immediately
Self-Awareness
Recognizing one’s feelings, needs, thoughts and influence on behavior
Self-Efficacy
Perceived capability to do a specific task
Stress Management
Responses to stress
Importance of Environmental Factors in Healthy Decision-Making
Youth make decisions about health based on many internal factors such as their belief in their ability to communicate effectively or positive health beliefs; but research tells us that social and environmental factors also have an impact on decision-making. In addition to building attitudes and skills within programs, the Health and Wellness core program area seeks to address and strengthen the social and environmental aspects that contribute to healthy decision-making.
By facilitating the SMART Moves suite in a group setting and creating opportunities for youth to share their values and attitudes with each other, it directly shapes youth’s positive peer influence on each other. Additionally, by providing supplementary family and caregiver resources that include discussion guides, extension activities and on-site activities, youth are able to better build health communication skills and external support for their healthy choices. Communication with trusted adults is linked with youth’s ability to avoid risky health behaviors.
Health and Wellness Programs and Resources
BGCA has developmentally appropriate programs and resources for all age groups:
Middle Childhood Ages 6 to 9
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness
SMART Moves + Modules
SMART Girls
Late Childhood Ages 10 to 12
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness
SMART Moves + Modules
SMART Girls
Passport to Manhood
Positive Club Climate
Early Adolescence Ages 13 to 15
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness
SMART Moves + Modules
SMART Girls
Passport to Manhood
Positive Club Climate
Teen Ages 16 to 18
SMART Girls
Passport to Manhood
Positive Club Climate
Wraparound Resources
LGBTQ Inclusion Toolkit
Be There Toolkit
Disability Inclusion Toolkit
Mapping SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness to National Standards
Health and Wellness programs are aligned to the Common Core State Standards as well as the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning Standards (CASEL). These standards are specific, developmentally appropriate learning goals that describe a skill that youth should be able to do after learning certain content. The Common Core is a set of academic standards in language arts and mathematics that detail rigorous learning goals by grade level. It also references “Core Habits of Mind,” which describe key ways of thinking demonstrated by young people who have met the Common Core standards. The Common Core has been adopted by 41 states as well as the District of Columbia, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands.vi The Common Core standards don’t explicitly address social and emotional learning, so BGCA programs have also been mapped to the Core SEL Standards as defined by CASEL.
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness is mapped by module for each age group. For a full list of the National Mapped Standards, please see page 351-356 in Appendix C.
For more information about the Common Core and CASEL standards, please visit BGCA.net and search for "Mapping Our Programs to National Standards.”
Youth Development Professionals’ Role in Healthy Decision-Making
Positive youth development is an intentional approach that engages youth within their communities, schools, organizations, peer groups, and families in a manner that is productive and constructive. It recognizes, uses and enhances young people’s strengths, and promotes positive outcomes for young people by providing opportunities, fostering positive relationships and furnishing the support needed to build on their leadership strengths.
Youth development practices that support teaching and learning are core to the quality of Health and Wellness programs. Effective Health and Wellness programs, when facilitated with high-quality youth development practices, will help youth develop the attitudes, behaviors, and skills needed to become effective and engaged learners who are on track to graduate with a plan for the future.
Youth development professionals can help all youth build resiliency skills when they:
Establish and maintain Group Agreements at the start of any routine programmatic experience to establish a safe environment for sharing and learning.
Provide frequent opportunities for youth to reflect on their experiences.
Respond to youth’s behaviors in ways that encourage them to communicate their feelings and self-regulate.
Provide the opportunity and space for youth to check in emotionally during the Club day and recognize trends in emotions and modify programming as necessary.
Programmatic and environmental adaptations to support the identities of all youth including youth with disabilities, and youth who identify as LGBTQ.
Give youth opportunities to independently recognize and solve problems and decisions about health.
Integrate trauma-informed approaches throughout the Club day, and especially within health programs and activities.
Youth development professionals can help all youth become more effective healthy decision-makers when they:
Model healthy decision-making among members including healthy eating, physical activity, healthy communication with others and emotional well-being.
Avoid the use of shaming and values-based language related to health such as “good and bad” or “right and wrong.”
Model appropriate self-disclosure about healthy behavior by refraining from sharing personal health information.
Establish themselves as health resources by addressing all questions about health-related issues with medically accurate answers or linking youth to resources.
Facilitate structured and unstructured opportunities for youth to talk with each other about health issues, peer pressure to engage in unhealthy behaviors and resistance strategies.
Leverage opportunities to connect decision-making about health to a youth’s vision for their future self.
Create opportunities for youth to be advocates for healthy behavior among their peers at the Club or Youth Center and within the community.
Use opportunities to recognize members who are making healthy choices individually and as groups.
Positive Youth Development Supports Character and Social-Emotional Development
All Boys & Girls Club or Youth Center programs offer opportunities for youth development professionals to model, recognize, reinforce and reflect on character development. Positive youth development provides direction for how you interact with, engage and model behavior for youth. You get to shape the lives of young people every day. As a result, you set the expectations and show youth what essential character traits (e.g., caring, citizenship, fairness, respect, responsibility and trustworthiness) mean, and how they look. These character traits come to life when youth practice social-emotional skills like teamwork, conflict management and emotional regulation.
Youth can start to build character using “caught and taught” approaches. Youth “catch” social-emotional skills when they observe youth development professionals modeling them, and when they interact with peers. Youth can also be “taught” skills to build good character when the skills are explicitly introduced and practiced through program sessions and activities. Use this formula to understand how character develops over time:
Youth Development Professionals Model Good Character + Youth Practice Skills Regularly = Character Development
Youth development professionals facilitating the SMART Moves suite can model good character in the way they support all youth, offer feedback rather than criticism, and encourage honesty and responsibility.
To build character traits, include many opportunities for youth to practice the social-emotional skills embedded in SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness. These include skills related to:
How youth feel about themselves
Their relationships with others
Their ability to regulate emotions
Their ability to solve problems
When character development is present:
Youth development professionals model and youth practice skills that display respect, fairness, trustworthiness, responsibility, caring and citizenship
Youth successfully get along well with others
Youth are better able to control their emotions and solve problems
When character development is absent:
Youth do not feel a sense of belonging at the Club or Youth Center
Youth lack skills that foster positive peer relationships
Youth lack self-control and act out in frustration
For more information, visit BGCA.net and search for "Program Basica BLUEprint," see pg 22: “Practicing Social-Emotional Skills to Achieve Character Development.” It will show you the specific social-emotional skills young people should practice in order to be able to demonstrate positive behaviors indicative of the six essential character traits.
Practice Positive Youth Development to Create Inclusive Clubs or Youth Centers
Inclusion is a core component to build a safe, positive environment in your Clubs or Youth Centers. In order to fulfill our mission, Clubs and Youth Centers must create safe, positive, and inclusive environments for all youth and teens – including every race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, ability, socio-economic status and religion. By creating inclusive environments at our Club or Youth Center, we improve the overall experience for all young people. When youth development professionals use positive youth development practices, they help ensure that all youth:
Feel represented
Have a sense of belonging
Can meaningfully participate in programming
As you implement SMART Moves, consider strategies that help youth feel affirmed, safe, and engaged with Club or Youth Center experiences. To download more information on building and sustaining an inclusive environment, visit BGCA.net and search for "Program Basics BLUEprint."
Maintaining a Safe Environment for Program Facilitation
Although the SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness program does not introduce or cover sensitive topics like abuse or child safety, asking youth to discuss their emotions has the potential to elicit youth responses that require staff follow-up. Due to the nature of this material, BGCA strongly recommends the use of the following best practice implementation guidelines.
Prioritize Physical and Emotional Safety: Before facilitating any SMART Moves sessions or related modules, it will be essential to review your Club or Youth Center’s safety policies, and be prepared to respond and report, should youth disclose past or current abuse, or urgent mental health issues. For immediate safety and life-threatening mental health concerns, call 911. For concerns of past abuse or ongoing abuse, neglect or endangerment, follow your state’s mandated reporting requirements. In addition, make sure to report safety-related incidents according to your organizational policies, and use the BGCA’s Safety Helpline for additional support at 866-607-SAFE.
For more information that can support you in creating physically and emotionally safe program environments, visit the Safety page on BGCA.net for the latest resources on:
Safety Policies and Actions
Mandated Reporting
Disclosures of Abuse
If you have questions about using these resources in your Club or Youth Center, or general safety questions, please reach out to the safety team at childsafety@bgca.org.
As you prepare to facilitate SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness, you’ll see facilitator notes labeled “Important Note About Emotional Safety” that serve as a reminder to listen closely to youth’s responses and follow up with reporting or additional support as needed.
Seek Training to Support Implementation: Since this subject matter is related to identifying emotions, and building effective coping strategies when youth feel a strong emotion, it may be beneficial to consider the ways in which trauma might impact youth’s understand of emotion, and their emotional reactions to various situations. Consider training in the following topics, prior to facilitating the emotional wellness program to develop an increased understanding of youth’s varying backgrounds: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Trauma Informed Care (TIC). For more information and free online TIC trainings and resources, visit the National Child Traumatic Stress Network at nctsn.org/resources/training. For more information on ACEs, visit CDC.gov.
Make referrals when needed: Emotional Wellness is a skill-building program that focuses on self-awareness and self-management, as well as social application of the skills learned. It is not a therapy or counseling tool and should not be used in this way. Understanding your role and professional ability as a youth development staff is critical. Some of the sessions may cause youth to become emotional, share personal stories about past trauma, or even open-up about their mental health. It is important to keep in mind that you are not expected to take on the role of a therapist or counselor, nor would it be ethical for you to do so. You should, however, be able to recognize when youth are disclosing abuse or another traumatic event, and to report it as appropriate. You are not alone in supporting Club youth. There are many caring adults and professionals available who are able to provide support when necessary. If you have a social worker or therapist on staff, ask them to be available to step in if needed during or after the program. If you do not have a social or therapist on staff, consider familiarizing yourself with the local agencies in your area, and make referrals when needed.
Use the following resources when making a referral:
BGCA Incident Response Guide
Visit211.org for more information on local resources.
For non-life-threatening mental health concerns, consider using the free Crisis Text Line by texting CLUB or 741741 to text with a trained crisis counselor 24/7. This resource should be used in collaboration with parental support.
Create a Safe Space: Create a welcoming and comfortable environment by:
Providing a variety of comfortable seating options, soft lighting, calming music and optional fidgets/manipulatives. Examples of manipulatives include: puzzles, pipe cleaners, putty, paper and crayons, etc.
Establishing Group Agreements and norms prior to beginning the program.
Using emotional check-ins as a way for youth to pause and reflect on how they are feeling.
Being an active listener throughout the program and following up with any youth afterward who appear to need additional support by stepping aside to discuss how they are feeling and determine how you can help.
Before each session, try saying something like, “This is a safe space where you are safe to feel and talk about your emotions and ask for help. All feelings are normal and healthy, and there is no wrong way to feel. You are always welcome to pass if you are not comfortable sharing in front of the group. I am here to help if you want to talk about anything during or after the program. Does anyone have any questions before we start?”
Grow in and Model Your Own Social-Emotional Development: Take time to reflect on your own social-emotional skills and identify your strengths and areas for growth by using the Personal Assessment and Reflection – SEL Competencies for School Leaders, Staff and Adults developed by CASEL.viii Create a plan for addressing your areas for growth and commit to working on it. Youth will look to you as role models for how to talk about and process emotions, as well as how to cope with stressful situations. Be a leader in not only teaching the emotional wellness sessons, but also by modeling it in your everyday interactions.
II. How to Implement SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness
Overview of Resources
SMART Moves consists of a suite of program resources that work together to teach skill building in healthy decision-making. Each program resource reflects contemporary youth development best practices and incorporates flexible sessions that allow Clubs and Youth Centers to customize learning to the interests and issues of their youth and communities.
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness is a 10-session targeted program focused on building three cognitive behavior skills most linked to helping youth avoid negative thought patterns and negative behaviors: self-regulation, impulse control and stress management. It has three units:
Self-Awareness: This unit focuses on youth’s ability to identify their own and others’ emotions; talk about their emotions; and recognize when they’re feeling a strong emotion. This unit gives youth an opportunity to explicitly practice emotional check-ins.
Self-Management: This unit focuses on youth’s ability to practice a self-regulation strategy when they’re feeling a strong emotion. Youth will be introduced to a variety of coping strategies and will build a self-care plan.
Social Application: Youth will apply which coping strategies are a best fit for various contexts and become leaders by teaching their favorite coping strategies to others.
The resulting coping strategies will serve as a foundation that allows youth to apply the health-specific knowledge and skills built and practiced in the health-promotion program SMART Moves: Core.
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness includes a full progression of sessions for youth in each of three grade groupings: K-2, 3-5 and 6-8. Each session is between 45 and 60 minutes and includes all the components of a high-quality youth development session: a Warm Welcome, a Community Builder, a Main Activity, Reflection, Peer Recognition and an opportunity to reflect.
Program activities are designed sequentially. The same group of youth should remain together throughout the program and participate in the units in the order they appear in this resource.
Primary Audience
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness is most impactful if delivered to a group that meets consistently. Consistency allows members to build relationships among the team as they get to know each other and build their skills by experiencing scaffolded, sequential learning. The team of youth work together to establish a safe space to talk about their emotions and build skills in self-regulation. Because of the vulnerability established as a part of SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness, the program isn’t designed for youth to come in and out of it. Ideally, the group would consist of 10-15 youth.
Program Facilitation Guidance
Format and Key Features:
Each session in SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness follows the same standard format, incorporating best practices in positive youth development. Facilitating the sessions in the format written is highly recommended to implement the program with fidelity. Each component of the session is briefly described below.
Background and Preparation – An overview of information needed to implement the activities
Session Objective – Specific learning goals for the activities
Time Requirements – Time frame to implement the session (50-60 minutes)
Materials Needed – All items needed to complete the activity
Handouts – Handouts and resources needed › Additional Resources – links to additional helpful resources
Health Skills – Attitudes, skills and knowledge developed in the activity
Social-Emotional Skills – Skills needed for success in life
Key Terms – Vocabulary/terms reinforced through the activity
Before the Session Welcome and Icebreaker – Brief “getting-ready” experiences for the group
Warm Welcome – A reminder to connect with each youth before the activity
Community Builder – A five- to ten-minute icebreaker to engage the group, lay the groundwork for the activity, and create an environment for learning and exploration. The Community Builders are intentionally linked to the objectives of the session, and introduce youth to foundational elements of the content, such as emotional check-ins and opportunities to experience self-regulation strategies. Even if youth already know each other, Community Builders should not be skipped.
Main Activity Instructions – Step-by-step instructions to lead youth through the activity
Activity Preparation – Steps to complete to prepare for the activity
Introducing Youth to Activity – A few comments to introduce the topic and activity
Step-by-Step Directions – Detailed steps to facilitate the activity
After the Activity – Helpful guidelines to meaningfully conclude the activity
Youth Reflection – A three-to-five minutes reflection that helps youth affirm what they’ve learned
Recognition – A brief activity to allow youth to recognize each other’s support and help. The recognition used in this program is the same in each session. Youth are invited to recognize each other by giving one another either a positive affirmation, encouragement or thankfulness, called a “PET.” This recognition was adapted from Ronda Tousciuk and the youth in her SMART Moves group at the Boys & Girls Club of the Great Lakes Bay Region.
Closing and Transition – A reminder about closing out the activity and moving on to the next area
Session Modification
We encourage you to review each session thoroughly prior to facilitating. As you review, you may prefer to modify some of the activities to better include and reflect the cultural identities and learning needs of your youth. For each Main Activity in SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness, you’ll notice either an Alternative Main Activity or an activity variation. These are there to guide you in making high-quality adaptations that still support the learning objectives, but provide for various learning styles, materials on hand or a better match of the dynamics of the group. Alternative activities are completely different ways to teach the session objectives, and activity variations are slight modifications since a different activity wouldn’t be able to teach the same objectives.
In addition, you’ll also find call-out boxes labeled, “Adaptation for Inclusion.” These notes call attention to places where you can better reflect the various identities of the youth in your Club or Youth Center. For example, changing names in a scenario, or using photographs of your own youth in materials instead of the resources provided.
Finally, you can integrate career exposure into any SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness sessions by inviting local professionals to speak with your program group about the ways coping strategies show up as a part of their career. This will emphasize the idea that emotional wellness is a lifelong commitment, and that there is community support for well-being. This invited professional guest should be someone who has expertise in the self-regulation topics that youth explored during this program. Some examples include: a school counselor, a therapist or a wellness activity instructor, such as a yoga teacher or a music therapist.
Use Family and Caregiver Resources
Research shows that family communication about health contributes to youth’s ability to make healthy decisions.ix x BGCA has created supplementary resources for use with family and caregivers. These resources are designed to create additional communication opportunities for families to talk together about the content in the SMART Moves program and invite families to share their values on health and wellness. Each program resource (SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness, SMART Moves: Core and SMART Moves Modules) includes three family and caregiver resources. They are divided into three types:
On-Site Experiences: Inviting families into the Club or Youth Center to experience a component of the SMART Moves targeted program and share a discussion with their youth.
Discussion Guides: A structured guide for conversation that reviews program content and invites families and youth to discuss their ideas and values about health together.
Extension Activities: A structured way for families to engage with the same content that youth experienced in the program, but with their family outside of the Club or Youth Center. Includes suggested discussion topics for families to engage in together.
Each of the family and caregiver resources is aligned with a particular SMART Moves session and is noted in the facilitator’s guide. We recommend inviting families of youth participating in SMART Moves to a kickoff session at the start of the program to learn ways youth can benefit from using the family and caregiver resources outside of the Club or Youth Center. A sample agenda for a kickoff session is included in SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness as the first family and caregiver resource.
Family Resource Type
Corresponding Session
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness Family and Caregiver Kickoff Night
Emphasize the value of family engagement in health and wellness by inviting families to attend a family night in which they learn about and experience some of the Emotional Wellness program. Make program consent forms available during this time, too!
Session 3: Emotions Head to Toe
“I Can” Plan Family and Caregiver Discussion Guide
Youth will share the self-care plans they created during Session 8 with a trusted adult and talk through additional coping strategies that can be used at home. Adults have an opportunity to share some of their healthy coping strategies.
Session 8: “I Can” Plan
The Coping Game Family and Caregiver Activity
Youth and families play a game together to practice and apply many of the coping strategies that were introduced in the program.
Session 9: The Coping Game
Use the Program Evaluation Resources to Measure Local Impact
This program includes a suite of evaluation resources that will help you measure the impact of SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness among youth in your Club or Youth Center. The survey tools measure attitudes and skills that can lead to the intended outcomes of the program. Using these evaluation tools will enable you to track the progress of youth toward building skills that support healthy decision-making. The resources include a pre/post test, a follow-up evaluation and retrospective post-test survey. These resources can be found under the Resources tab of this collection.
Use Calming Music to Guide Session Facilitation
Using calming music when youth enter the program space, during individual activity time, and when youth are transitioning to the next program space. This technique can help refocus youths’ energy and make them feel calm and safe. Calming music sections should be free of words, slow in pace, and may even include nature sounds.
Allow Youth Opportunities to Pass
Emotional Safety is a priority during the SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness sessions. Make sure youth are provided with an opportunity to “pass” or sit out of activities if they are feeling uncomfortable or unwilling to share during a component of the session. Youth who would like to opt-out of activities can do this in one of two ways:
A quiet zone: Create a quiet space in the program environment that is out of the way of the Main Activity space. Youth should still be able to observe the other youth participating. Provide manipulatives that youth can use to help guide self-regulation. When youth are ready, they can opt back into the program.
Leaving the sessions to go to Club-wide self-regulation space: Hopefully, your Club or Youth Center has created a space in which all Club or Youth Center youth can self-regulate with adult supervision. Provide support to youth if they opt to leave the session and make sure they use your Club or Youth Center’s routines and expectations for accessing the self-regulation space.
Use Groupers Intentionally
Using groupers – quick, inclusive ways to divide a large group into smaller groups or teams – is a fundamental youth development practice, as it helps build community among a group of youth. Rather than letting youth work together with friends or others they already know well, the groupers allow youth to be partnered in various new ways and support teamwork and trust-building for the group at large. While each SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness session includes a grouper, you can find alternative groupers on the Session Quality Page.
Plan a Formal Recognition or Celebration That Reflects Your Youth Culture
Although this program ends at Session 10, there is an option to facilitate a final recognition and celebration session at the end of the Emotional Wellness program. Use The Journey Continues: A Closing Celebration to plan key elements of your final celebration that incorporate the content of this program, while reflecting specific cultures and traditions used at your Club or Youth Center.
Obtain Parent/Guardian Consent Forms
BGCA recommends that before beginning any of the components of the SMART Moves Suite, you receive parent or guardian permission for youth to participate in the program. Sample consent forms are included under the Resources tab of this Collection.
Parent/Guardian Consent Form
BGCA recommends that before you begin any of the components of the SMART Moves Suite, you receive parent or guardian permission for youth to participate in the program. Please see the following sample consent form.
These following letters are intended to seek permission from parents, guardians, and other caregivers for their children to participate in social-emotional development and health promotion programming, and to encourage their support of your endeavors. First, determine whether to use the English or Spanish-language version of the consent form. Then, simply replace the text in parentheses at the top of the page with your Club’s information, print copies on Club letterhead, and distribute to your members’ parents or guardians. Ask youth to return signed forms before the program begins.
Evidence Basis for SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness
Background
Young people are frequently faced with making decisions about health, and certain health risk behaviors remain relatively high among youth, despite overall declining trends. In 2017, 30% of high school students reported current alcohol use, 20% of high schoolers reported current marijuana use and 13% had used a e-vapor product. Thirty nine percent of high school students had had sexual intercourse, and only 54% had reported using a condom during sex.xi
We know that a person’s social-emotional skills are linked to healthier outcomes, including substance-use prevention, mental health and smoking. This social-emotional skill building starts early; stronger social-emotional skills, noticed as early as kindergarten, are correlated with improved measures of overall health into adulthood.xii To address this, many of the evidence-based risk behavior prevention curricula focus much of their content on social-emotional skill building opportunities given the link between higher social-emotional skills and reduced health risk taking, especially for substance use.xiii Building social-emotional skills such as self-control, emotional awareness and communication are recommended as one of the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) core Prevention Principals.xiv
Boys & Girls Clubs of America has used this research to development the SMART Moves health promotion program, starting with the SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness component. SMART Moves is BGCA’s foundational program focused on universal health promotion through skill building for youth in grades K-8.
Research
Research into several key strategies used to develop SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness. The program and supporting tools were designed to leverage the following strategies:
Focus on explicit social-emotional skill building: We know increased social-emotional skills are linked with healthier outcomes. SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness takes a unique approach to this work by using a full targeted program to teach youth foundational social-emotional skills associated with healthier outcomes that provide critical opportunities for skills practice.xv This program teaches skills in identifying emotions, impulse control and stress management. It uses them in the creation of a coping strategies plan. Each of these skills is then expanded upon in more health focused ways in SMART Moves Core and supplementary modules.
Focus on skill building in early and middle childhood: Many of the substance use prevention programs demonstrating lasting effects are programs that start skill building opportunities in early and middle childhood, when youth are developmentally ripe to build certain socialemotional skills. xvi SMART Moves uses this concept by focusing our targeted program toward youth and pre-teens in grades K-8 to build core social-emotional skills before youth may be faced with a decision to participate in risky behavior. xvii
Engaging families and caregivers with supporting resources: Research suggests that youth’s communication with families and other trusted adults are a large influence in their values and decision-making related to health.ix x SMART Moves addresses this by providing program supplements designed to engage family and caregivers in discussions about content covered in SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness and invites them to participate in on-site activities.
Theoretical Basis
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness was developed using core constructs from the Social Cognitive Theory. The Social Cognitive Theory emphasizes the dynamic interaction between people, their behavior and their environments in dictating behavioral choices. This theory led us to design program sessions that focused on guiding youth to identify their emotions and respond to their environments in healthy ways, build self-efficacy and positive outcome expectations related to their ability to manage stress. In addition, we included opportunities for families and peers to share their values around healthy decision-making and build positive attitudes toward youth’s belief in their ability to perform a specific behavior.
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness Logic Model
Research has shown that the evidence-based foundational skills embedded in SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness can lead to the outcomes shown in the logic model. SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness was designed to help youth achieve the following short-term, intermediate and long-term outcomes.
Objective
Youth will build social-emotional skills in order to self-regulate when they feel strong emotions
Short-Term Outcomes (0-3 months)
Youth report being able to identify their emotions
Youth report having increased impulse control
Youth report increased ability to use coping strategies
Youth report increased ability to manage stress
Intermediate Outcomes (3-6 months)
Youth report increased ability to self-regulate
Youth report choosing healthy ways to manage stress
Long-Term Outcomes (12 months or more)
Youth report considering their emotions when making decisions
Youth report self-regulating before making decisions
Evaluation Resources Research
Overview of SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness Evaluation Resources
Research has shown that the evidence-based foundational skills embedded in SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness can lead to the outcomes shown in the logic model. The evaluation resources that follow are tools your Club or Youth Center can use to measure the impact of this targeted program on skills and assets that have been shown to lead a reduction in risk behavior.
The evaluation resources include a guide to understanding and interpreting your data and a selection of surveys that you can chose from depending what works best for your Club or Youth Center:
A guide to understanding your data: Overview of what knowledge, attitudes and skills are being measured by the surveys and how to interpret your results.
Cover page: Instructions to review with members before administering evaluation.
Pre/post evaluation: Use right before and right after SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness.
Follow-up evaluation: Use at any specified time period after SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness.
Retrospective (reflection) evaluation: Use instead of the pre/post surveys right after SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness.
Assesses changes in knowledge, attitudes and skills right after completing the program.
Give to members right after finishing the program.
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness Follow-Up Survey
Assess changes in knowledge, attitudes and skills over a period of time after completing the program to see the impact of the program on members over time.
Give to members during a specified given period of time (e.g., 3, 6, 12 months) after finishing the program survey.
Assesses knowledge, attitudes and skills before and right after Emotional Wellness in one survey in order to reduce the amount of surveys taken. Use this instead of the pre-/post-evaluation.
Give to members right after finishing the program in order for them to respond to how they felt before and after the program.
Guide to Understanding and Interpreting Your Data
Overview of Emotional Wellness
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness is a targeted program focused on positive coping strategies that builds three cognitive behavior skills most linked to helping youth avoid negative thought patterns and negative behaviors: selfregulation, impulse control and stress management. Participating youth will build an effective toolbox for self-management and coping. These skills serve as the foundation for the application of health knowledge and health-specific behaviors built and practiced in the health promotion program component of the SMART Moves suite, SMART Moves: Core.
The goal of the SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness program is to build foundational coping skills among Club members in elementary and middle school by teaching self-regulation strategies to support healthy decisionmaking. As a result of this program, youth will be able to:
Demonstrate impulse control in daily activities and when making decisions
Demonstrate self-regulation when making decisions and in daily interactions
Demonstrate effective strategies to manage stress
Use coping strategies from a “toolbox” to support healthy decision-making
Description of Evaluation Measures
The surveys included in the suite of evaluation resources will help you measure the impact of the SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness targeted program on the youth in your Club and Youth Center. The survey tools measure attitudes and skills that can lead to the intended outcomes of the program. Using these evaluation tools will enable you to track the progress of youth toward building self-regulation skills that support healthy decision making. Below is a description of each of the attitudes and skills that the evaluation tools measure.
Social-Emotional Skills
(Ability to foster relationships, communicate, regulate emotions and make decisions.)
Social-Emotional Skills
Definition
Survey Items
Identifying Emotions
Expressing feelings
For each of the following statements, please tell us how easy or difficult these behaviors are for you: • Knowing the emotions I feel. • Understanding how my feelings influence how I act.
Self-Awareness
Recognizing ones feelings, needs, thoughts and influence on behavior
How much do you agree or disagree with the following: • I can describe my feelings. • I understand how my emotions affect others.
Empathy
Ability to understand and share in the feelings of others
How much do you agree or disagree with the following: • I care about what happens to other people. • I understand how other people feel. • I consider other people’s feelings. • I show appreciation to others.
Stress Management
Responses to stress
For each of the following statements, please tell us how easy or difficult these behaviors are for you: • Staying calm when I feel stressed. • Getting through something even when I feel frustrated. • Controlling my temper when I am upset. • Knowing ways to calm myself down. • Thinking carefully about what I say before I speak. • Using coping strategies to help me feel better when I feel stressed or worried.
Impulse Control
Controlling the desire to react immediately
For each of the following statements, please tell us how easy or difficult these behaviors are for you: • I think before I act.
Collaboration With Peers
Working together toward shared goals with youth
How much do you agree or disagree with the following: • I work well with others.
Interpreting Your Data
There are two different scales being used to measure the coping skills in Emotional Wellness. The table below gives an overview of the scales and how to interpret them when analyzing your data.
Scale
Data Interpretation
How much do you agree or disagree with the following? • Strongly Disagree • Disagree • Agree • Strongly Agree
These items generally track confidence in self-regulation strategies and understanding emotions. Strongly Agree” represent the highest scores and these abilities while “Strongly Disagree” represent the lowest scores and abilities to engage in these skills. Growth in youth skills are demonstrated by increases in the amount of youth who selected “Strongly Disagree” or “Disagree” to “Agree” and “Strongly Agree.”
For each of the following statements, please tell us how easy or difficult these behaviors are for you. • Very Difficult • Difficult • Easy • Very Easy
These items generally track the degree to which it is difficult or easy to work with others and understand their feelings. “Very Easy” represents the highest score and ability to engage in these skills while “Very Difficult” represents the lowest scores to engage in these skills. Growth in youth skills are demonstrated by increases in the amount of youth who selected “Very Difficult” or “Difficult” to “Easy” and “Very Easy.”
Use the evaluation tools to measure the impact of Emotional Wellness on the youth in your Club or Youth Center. Using the follow-up survey will enable you to track growth over time in the selected attitudes and skills in order to demonstrate longer-term impact and outcomes.
National Standards Mapping
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness is mapped by module for each age group. The bullet points next to each module list the standards covered as part of that module.
SMART Moves: Emotional Wellness for Grades K-2
Session: Group Agreements
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Awareness: Identifying Emotions • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Management: Impulse Control • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Social Awareness: Respect for Others • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Relationship Skills: Communication, Relationship-Building
Session: Feelings Faces
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.3: Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric. • Habits of Mind: English Language Arts Standard: Come to understand other perspectives and cultures • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Awareness: Identifying Emotions • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Social-Awareness: Perspective-Taking, Empathy
Session: Emotions Head to Toe
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Awareness: Identifying Emotions
Session: Time Travelers
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Awareness: Identifying Emotions, Accurate Self-Perception
Session: Time Travelers
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Awareness: Identifying Emotions, Accurate Self-Perception
Session: Magic Carpet Ride
• CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Awareness: Identifying Emotions • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Management: Impulse Control, Stress Management
Session: My Superhero Self
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Awareness: Identifying Emotions, Accurate Self-Perception, Recognizing Strengths, Self-Confidence • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Management: Impulse Control, Stress Management
Session: Rain Stick Relaxation
• CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Awareness: Identifying Emotions • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Management
Session: “I Can” Plans
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Awareness: Identifying Emotions • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Management: Impulse Control, Stress Management
Session: The Coping Game
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Awareness: Identifying Emotions • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Management: Impulse Control, Stress Management • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Relationship Skills: Teamwork
Session: Coping Strategies Gallery
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Awareness: Identifying Emotions • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Self-Management: Impulse Control, Stress Management • CASEL Core SEL Competencies – Relationship Skills: Teamwork, Communication, Social Engagement