Social Emotional and Child Protection Benchmarks Created

The Office of Overseas Schools is committed to helping to provide a safe learning environment for all students in international schools. For the last decade we have worked to expand guidance and active child protection efforts through our relationships with other international educational entities, school accreditation agencies, and law enforcement agents from the United States and abroad. We know that these efforts must be continuous and ongoing to safeguard children who attend schools around the world. We also recognize that students themselves need support in understanding how to have healthy self-concepts, emotional strength, and resiliency.

We engaged with Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL ) and International Centre on Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC ), two thought partners, with our office to work together with esteemed educators to create this roadmap. We thank all who engaged in this work for their selfless and tireless commitments to putting the children at the center of these efforts and to hearing the voices of the students who advised this work and changed it for the better.

As all schools and students are unique, it’s important that schools use this document to create their own defined plans for curriculum implementation. Plans should include when, how, where, and who should integrate the benchmarks into all students’ learning engagements and environments, including the classroom, school, home, and community. Schools should give careful consideration to how they can adopt these standards and benchmarks to enhance all students’ sense of belonging and identity.

Download the full Social Emotional Learning and Child Self-Protection (SELCSP) Standards And Benchmarks for International Schools [623 KB]. These standards and benchmarks are open source and intended for use in international schools. Please credit the Office of Overseas Schools of the United States Department of State when sharing and using the standards and benchmarks. We want them to be used freely without cost to any group of educators. We want them to make a difference.

Additional resources on Social Emotional Learning can also be found on CASEL’s Schoolwide SEL Guide .