Feasibility of a Social-emotional Learning Curriculum in a STEM-based After-school Program

Single Arm Study of a Novel Social-emotional Learning Curriculum in STEM-based After-school Program for Youth

The goal of this single arm study is to:

1. primary purpose: to determine the feasibility of a novel social-emotional learning curriculum when implemented in the STEM Academy program at the Visions of Science after school program; 2a. secondary purpose: to determine whether the novel social-emotional learning curriculum has positive effects youth social emotional learning skills; 2b. secondary purpose: to determine whether the novel social-emotional learning curriculum has positive effects on youth resilience and overall functioning.

Participants:

1. Facilitators working with the STEM Academy program at the Visions of Science after school program
2. Youth aged 11-14 who participate in the STEM Academy program at the Visions of Science after school program
3. Parents of youth who participate in the STEM Academy Visions of Science after school program

The main questions this study aims to answer are:

Primary Objectives:

1. Is the novel social-emotional curriculum feasible within the STEM Academy program at the Visions of Science after school program?
2. Is the novel social-emotional curriculum acceptable within the STEM Academy program at the Visions of Science after school program?
3. Is the novel social-emotional curriculum appropriate within the STEM Academy program at the Visions of Science after school program?

Secondary Objectives: Social-emotional learning skills

1. Have youth social-emotional learning skills improved as a result of participating in the novel social-emotional learning curriculum?

Secondary Objectives: Resilience and overall functioning

1. Have youth resilience abilities and overall functioning improved as a result of participating in the novel social-emotional learning program?

Comparator: None

Measures:

Primary Objective: Feasibility

After school program staff participants will be asked to complete:

• 3 feasibility measures (feasibility, acceptability, appropriateness of intervention) after each social-emotional module they complete teaching.
• weekly fidelity checklists to assess feasibility.

Youth participants will be asked to complete:

- the intervention appropriateness measure during the post-curriculum data collection time point.

Secondary Objective: Social-emotional learning skills

After school program staff participants will be asked to complete the following measure pre- and post-curriculum implementation:

- social-emotional learning skills measure for each youth aged 11-14 years in their class.

Youth participants will be asked to complete the following measure pre- and post-curriculum implementation:

- social-emotional learning skills measure Parents participants whose youth are in the intervention arm will be asked to participate in an interview.

Secondary objective: Resilience and overall functioning

After school program staff participants will be asked to complete the follow measures pre- and post-curriculum implementation:

- overall functioning measure for each youth aged 11-14 years in their class.

Youth participants will be asked to complete:

- resilience measure

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Feasibility Study; Social-emotional Learning Curriculum
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: EMPOWER Social-emotional learning curriculum

Detailed Description

The EMPOWER project is a community-academic partnership between 2 after school programs (beyond 3:30 and Visions of Science) and a mental health teaching hospital (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health). The main objective of this project is to bolster youth mental well-being by developing a novel social-emotional learning curriculum that after school programs can embed into their existing activities.

The curriculum is designed to improve youth's social emotional learning skills through the integration of short social-emotional learning lessons that are embedded into existing programming within an after-school program. The curriculum is based on the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning's five core SEL competencies that include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and decision-making.

The investigators have designed a pilot study to test the feasibility and efficacy of the EMPOWER social-emotional learning curriculum. Visions of Science hosts a 14-week program from January - April 2025 called STEM Academy, an after-school science-based program for youth in grades 6-8. We designed a single arm study to assess a shortened and modular use of the EMPOWER social-emotional learning curriculum that is tailored to Visions of Science.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 26
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Ontario
    • Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M6J 1H4
      • Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

INCLUSION:

Youth participants must meet the following inclusion criteria:

1. Must be a youth aged 11-14 years attending the STEM Academy program at the Visions of Science after school program
2. Must sign and date the informed consent form
3. Must speak and understand English

Staff participants must meet the following inclusion criteria:

1. Must be a facilitator of the STEM Academy program at the Visions of Science after school program
2. Must sign and date the informed consent form
3. Must speak and understand English

Caregiver/parent participants must meet the following inclusion criteria:

1. Must be a caregiver/parent of a youth aged 11-14 years attending the STEM Academy program at the Visions of Science after school program. Caregivers/parents whose children decide not to participate in data collection are still able to participate in an interview post-SEL curriculum implementation.
2. Must sign and date the informed consent form
3. Must speak and understand English

EXCLUSION; None

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Single arm: Social-emotional learning curriculum; This is the only group delivering the EMPOWER social-emotional learning curriculum.	Behavioral: EMPOWER Social-emotional learning curriculum; EMPOWER is a 16-week social-emotional learning curriculum that is integrated into the after-school program context. The STEM Academy program will implement a shortened version of the social-emotional learning curriculum to meet their timelines.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Feasibility assessed by 5-point Likert-type scale	Description: Staff will complete the Feasibility of Intervention (Weiner et al., 2017) measure after each social-emotional domain (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship skills, decision-making) is taught. This is a 4-item, 5-point Likert-type scale that measures a composite feasibility of intervention score.	13 weeks
Acceptability of Intervention	Staff in the active intervention arm will complete the Acceptability of Intervention Measure (Weiner et al., 2017) measure after each social-emotional domain (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship skills, decision-making) is taught. This is a 4-item, 5-point Likert-type scale that measures a composite acceptability of intervention score.	13 weeks
Intervention Appropriateness	Staff will complete the Intervention Appropriateness (Weiner et al., 2017) measure after each social-emotional domain (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship skills, decision-making) is taught. This is a 4-item, 5-point Likert-type scale that measures a composite appropriateness of intervention scale. Youth will complete the intervention appropriateness (Weiner et al., 2017) scale post-SEL curriculum implementation.	13 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Overall functioning	KIDSCREEN 10 (Child Public Health, 2023) is a 10-item, 5-point Likert-type scale that measures global quality of life. Staff will complete an adapted version of the KIDSCREEN for each youth they work with (avg. 25 youth/site) pre- and post-EMPOWER SEL curriculum intervention. Youth will complete the KIDSCREEN pre- and post-EMPOWER SEL curriculum intervention.	13 weeks
Resilience	Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10; 2007) is a 10-item, 5-point Likert-type scale that measures overall resilience. Youth will complete this measure pre- and post-EMPOWER SEL curriculum intervention.	13 weeks
Social-emotional learning skills	The Social Skills Improvement System - Social Emotional Learning (SSIS-SEL Brief Scale; (Elliot et al., 2020) is a 20-item, 4-point Likert-type scale that measures self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and decision making as a composite score of social-emotional competency. Staff will complete the SSIS-SEL Brief Scale for each youth they work with (avg. 25 youth/site) pre- and post-EMPOWER SEL curriculum intervention. Youth will complete the SSIS-SEL Brief Scale pre- and post-EMPOWER SEL curriculum intervention.	13 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 21, 2025
• Primary Completion (Actual): May 30, 2025
• Study Completion (Actual): May 30, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 7, 2025
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 9, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): January 10, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 18, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 16, 2026
• Last Verified: March 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: 2024/159

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No