The Four Domains of Wellness: A Look at the Student Universal Wellness Screener (SUWS)
10 MIN READ
Author: Steven Dahl, M.Ed.
Director of Professional Learning & Content Development
The Center for Educational Effectiveness
Author: David Tudor
Director of K-12 Systems Change & Implementation
The Center for Educational Effectiveness
Screener data, by itself, will not result in improved outcomes for systems or the students they serve. Screener data that is actionable requires professionals to take action. While this seems patently obvious, it warranted being addressed by Romer et al (2020): “There is an ethical responsibility to enact meaningful decisions on said data (i.e., “screen to intervene”). It is unethical to collect data that requires the use of school time and/or resources, without utilizing the data to inform service delivery.”
This means that even if districts understand the research-backed rationale for using a SEB screener, and remove barriers to commitment, and follow a best-practice roadmap to implementation, nothing will have changed if action is not taken to change what students see, hear, and experience as a result.
SEB Screeners Support Scaling Service Delivery
In the vast and varied tapestry of student populations, educational leaders are increasingly acknowledging the necessity to address more than academic skills. Scaling a variety of services to address the needs of the ‘whole child’ has left even the strongest district with a significant challenge of making decisions about how best to scale their response.
The Student Universal Wellness Screener (SUWS), a social, emotional, behavioral screening tool developed by the Center for Educational Effectiveness (CEE), has been adopted and used by Gwinnett County Public Schools for the past two school years. GCPS is the 11th largest district and Gwinnett County, GA is the 7th most diverse county in the United States.
Gwinnett County's initiative serves as a beacon, signaling a shift toward a comprehensive approach that recognizes the interconnectedness of these domains in fostering a supportive educational ecosystem. The implementation of the SUWS is a progressive step, reflecting a commitment to removing barriers to implementation, creating a culture of collaboration to ensure screening data is used appropriately, and focusing on nurturing all aspects of student development and well-being. Other districts, such as Port Angeles School District, have also implemented the SUWS following a similar process of recognizing a compelling need for more actionable data than was previously available.
In reality, the size of the district is not a determining factor as to whether a SEB screening process should be implemented. What is important is that all districts have a quantifiable way to identify students in need of supports. Districts implementing the SUWS appreciate how it spans four critical domains and provides academic, social, emotional, and belonging and identity data, offering a holistic assessment of student wellness.
Academic Behavior: This domain delves into the student's approach to learning and schoolwork. It’s not solely about academic performance but also about their organizational skills, task completion, and engagement with the curriculum. Proficiency in this area is a strong predictor of future success and is crucial for identifying students who may need additional academic support.
Social Behavior: Social interactions within the school environment are pivotal for student development. This domain assesses how students collaborate, resolve conflicts, and build relationships with peers and teachers. A positive social behavior screening can indicate a student's ability to contribute to a healthy school climate and establish supportive social networks.
Emotional Behavior: Emotional well-being is a significant contributor to a student's overall success. This domain evaluates how students manage stress, regulate emotions, and navigate personal challenges. Screening for emotional behavior can guide interventions to support mental health and develop resilience.
Belonging and Identity: A sense of belonging and identity is fundamental for student engagement. This domain reflects how connected and accepted students feel within their school community, which can impact motivation, participation, and self-esteem. Ensuring that each student feels valued is critical to their personal and educational growth.
With student responses captured across these four domains, data visualizations at the individual, group, grade level and school support effective decision-making. Accessed through a dashboard equipped with filters to disaggregate data based on risk categorization, response teams can pinpoint decisions to be made and actions to be taken directly from their students’ perspective. Further disaggregation based on grade level, ethnicity, gender, gifted program, special education, and English learner provides professionals a way to identify needs, trends, and move from data observations to data inferencing. Moreover, through an additional district-level dashboard, district-wide data becomes transparent and supports decision-making, progress monitoring, and adjustments.
When districts and MTSS teams have SUWS data across these 4 domains, they can take specific types of actions to support students' holistic well-being and academic success. Here are examples of actions that can, and should, result:
Individualized Support Plans: Analyze the data to identify students who may need additional support in specific areas such as social-emotional skills, academic motivation, or sense of belonging. Develop individualized support plans tailored to each student's needs.
Targeted Interventions: Use the data to design targeted interventions aimed at addressing specific challenges identified by students. These interventions could include social skills training, academic tutoring, mentoring programs, or counseling services.
Classroom-level Adjustments: Teacher-student and student-student relationships are interconnected to the learning conditions for all students at the classroom level. Curricular and instructional practices can be adjusted to align with students’ diverse needs, promote engagement, and foster belongingness.
Data-Informed Decision-Making: Use the SUWS data to inform decision-making at the district and school levels. Monitor trends over time, identify areas of improvement, and allocate resources effectively to address students' needs.
Follow-Up Assessments and Monitoring: Conduct follow-up assessments to track students' progress and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions implemented based on the SUWS data. Use this information to make further adjustments and refinements to support students' ongoing growth and development.
Further, in response to trends observed in the data, initiatives to promote a positive school climate and foster a sense of belonging and inclusion among all students may need to be refined or developed. This could involve implementing restorative justice practices, peer mentoring programs, student leadership opportunities, or cultural proficiency training for staff.
How Often Should Screening Occur?
The question of how often to administer a SEB screening is a valid one. Districts should consider that while screening will support decision-making for supports categorized as Tier 2 and Tier 3, the screener can also be used to measure the effectiveness of learning conditions available to all students in Tier 1. According to Romer, et al, “Administering a screener at least twice a year is, however, necessary for evaluating the impact of Tier 1 intervention. Despite administering SEB screening multiple times a year requiring additional time and resources, it can increase student access to SEB interventions when necessary and, thereby, improve outcomes and save resources in the long term.” (pg. 11)
In districts such as Gwinnett County Public Schools and Port Angeles School District, intra-year screenings (e.g., fall and spring) provide data insights about movement of individual students, groups of students, and movement between tiers. This degree of data visualization provides a high degree of specificity – even down to how students across all three tiers respond to single survey questions each time, such as:
These, along with other related questions, paint a data-picture that supports caring and competent professionals to respond accordingly. This level of data acuity is the only antidote to the foggy world of hunches and anecdotal data.
As noted by the team in PASD, students with internalizing behaviors are very hard to detect. They tend to fly ‘under the radar’. Districts who rationalize the use of options that are inferior to a quality screening instrument risk more than not capturing data, they risk not identifying students at the greatest risk. Perhaps no stronger statement in support of SEB screening can be found than from Port Angeles School District’s Superintendent Marty Brewer, “I advocate for the tools and resources our staff need to engage in the work our community has agreed is a priority. We budget in alignment with those priorities. The Student Universal Wellness Screener is an investment that allows us to ensure equitable practices for student success. This work is our priority, so is the SUWS. We won’t go without it.”
SEB Screening Is a Wise Investment
Ultimately, any investment of time, resources, personnel, and organizational expertise must be weighed against its alternatives. Consider CASEL’s summary in Making the Case for SEL: Benefits of Social and Emotional Learning (2015):
SEL Leads to Improved Academic Outcomes and Behaviors
Hundreds of studies offer consistent evidence that SEL bolsters academic performance and benefits students.
SEL interventions that address the five core competencies increased students’ academic performance by 11 percentile points, compared to students who did not participate.
Students participating in SEL programs showed improved: classroom behavior, ability to manage stress and depression, and attitudes about themselves, others, and school.
SEL Is a Wise Financial Investment
Cost-benefit research demonstrates the value of SEL programs.
An average return on investment for six evidence-based programs was 11 to 1, meaning every dollar invested produced $11 worth of benefits.
These statistics are staggering and CASEL continues to make the case even stronger.
And, as this blog series shared at the outset, so is the statistic that “Fewer than one-in-ten districts (6%) complete brief SEB screeners for all students: universal school-based SEB screening is the exception, not the norm,” according to the NEEDs2 Project.
As this blog series has spelled out, there has never been a stronger research-based rationale for using a SEB screener to support crucial decision making across organizations. Where funding is a concern, the use of categorical and non-categorical funds has been illuminated. Further, the contrast between data generated through carefully designed and implemented screening instruments in contrast to haphazard, anecdotal approaches has been made clear. And finally, the potential for SEB screening data to support actionable responses in light of student needs across academic, social, emotional and belongingness & identity domains is compelling.
A Call to Action
Educational decision-makers are encouraged to explore how the SUWS could serve as a transformative catalyst for change within their districts. By committing to a comprehensive approach to student wellness, they can foster an environment where every student is primed for success.
To effectively utilize the SUWS, districts must commit to a holistic approach and be equally invested in taking action on data that can be very finely grained. This involves integrating the screener into the school and district’s existing support systems, training staff on interpreting and acting upon the results, and ensuring that interventions are tailored to meet the identified needs within each domain. By doing so, districts ensure that the insights gained from the SUWS translate into meaningful and effective support for every student, thereby promoting a well-rounded educational experience.
If this series of articles has challenged you to consider to start the process of implementing a screener, or has you interested in a demonstration of the Student Universal Wellness Screener (SUWS), please connect with us so we can explore this further. Click Here to schedule a meeting or call 425-584-2354.
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