Program Description
CharacterStrong’s PurposeFull People Elementary Curriculum is an evidence-based PreK – 5th grade curriculum that integrates the teaching of social-emotional competencies and character strengths. PurposeFull People focuses on supporting students to acquire and apply 3 foundational social-emotional competencies: Emotion Regulation Skills, Social Skills, and Executive Functioning Skills. In addition, the social-emotional competencies are integrated with 10 foundational character traits: Kindness, Courage, Respect, Responsibility, Perseverance, Empathy, Cooperation, Creativity, Honesty, and Gratitude. CharacterStrong’s PurposeFull People includes vertically-aligned curricular content with a total of 36 weekly lessons at each grade level. PurposeFull People was built to provide an adaptive and flexible approach to lesson delivery through 3 implementation plan options (flexible, daily, or weekly).
Program Outcomes
PurposeFull People was evaluated in a cluster-randomized study involving 10 rural and urban elementary schools in the Midwest region of the US. At each school, 2nd through 5th grade teachers/classrooms were randomly assigned to implement PurposeFull People (n=22) or to a business-as-usual control condition (n=22) A random sample of eight students from each classroom were selected to participate in the study. These students were assessed at baseline and 4-month posttest after completion of the PfP program. Compared to business-as-usual, the PurposeFull People classrooms demonstrated significant improvements on measures of student behavior expectations (effect size = +0.43), incidence of student discipline (+0.49), and academic engagement (+0.50). These results earned PurposeFull people an ESSA strong rating in the Academic, Problem Behavior, and Social Relationships categories.
Staffing Requirements
No additional staffing required.
Professional Development/Training
CharacterStrong provides multiple training opportunities to support fidelity of curriculum delivery and low-burden, high-impact practices. Whole-staff training is offered virtually or in-person for initial implementation and for sustaining implementation of the PurposeFull People elementary curriculum. The training lasts 3 hours and focuses on supporting educator motivation, skills, and self-efficacy to deliver the curriculum with fidelity. Also embedded in the curriculum platform are online orientation modules to introduce the purpose and functionality of the curriculum in 30 minutes or less. CharacterStrong also hosts an On Demand PD platform that includes courses on student behavior, mental health literacy, adult SEL, and a comprehensive whole-staff training on research-backed practices that support well-being, belonging, and engagement. Included in purchase of the curriculum, leaders have access to a self-paced Implementation Roadmap that guides them through research-backed implementation strategies including those focused on teaming, data-based decision-making, and utilization of cues and prompts for adult behavior change.
Technology
PurposeFull People curriculum is digitally delivered and teachers need a computer and access to the digital content via a secured log in.