Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) & Mindful Self-Care

Self-care has grown to be recognized as both a personal and professional responsibility. Counseling related organizations, such as American Counseling Assiciation (ACA), American School Counselor Association (ASCA), and the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP), emphasize its importance as a fundamental duty for mental health professionals (Choi & Hyun, 2023). Over the past three decades, mindfulness has become a cornerstone of self-care in counseling education, addressing challenges such as burnout, compassion fatigue, and stress-related physical and psychological symptoms.

To support these goals, counselor training programs have increasingly adopted mindfulness and Social–Emotional Learning (SEL) practices to provide trainees with vital skills for personal and professional well-being. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)’s transformative SEL emphasizes building strong, respectful relationships, examining root causes of inequity, and creating collaborative solutions to social challenges. These principles align with school counseling objectives by promoting students’ social, emotional, and cognitive development while advancing equity, social justice, and cultural competence.

In EDCO 289 Seminar in Professional Counseling: SEL & Self-Care Based on Mindfulness, EDCO graduate students explore practical tools for integrating SEL’s five competencies—self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making—alongside mindfulness core values, such as presence, gratitude, and compassion. This approach demonstrates the transformative power of combining SEL and mindfulness to foster resilience, well-being, and meaningful change in educational and counseling settings.

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