Strengthening Social, Emotional and Behavioral Resilience

Behavioral and emotional disorders adversely affect overall health and well-being. Prevalence rates among children and adolescents classified with behavioral and emotional disorders or neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD), as recently redefined in ICD-11, have steadily increased over the past decade. In particular, prevalence rates among persons classified with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), the fastest rising behavioral and emotional disorder, have sharply risen over the past five years and is now estimated at 1 in 54. Shared symptoms within behavioral and emotional disorders include persistent social, emotional and behavioral functioning deficits that often impact self-management, social-awareness and metacognition competences, in addition to adulthood health and wellness life course transition management. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) stakeholder advocates have contributed meaningfully to the strengthening of behavioral and emotional health through interventions that focus primarily on physical and mental health outcomes of diagnosed individuals. However, focus on spiritual health outcomes and the at-risk population remain largely underutilized. Research that seeks to employ an integrative physical-mental-spiritual approach to strengthen social, emotional and behavioral resilience, of at-risk school age populations where social stigma and prohibitive treatment costs remain barriers to treatment is needed to help expand the field's understanding of the reciprocal relationship between spiritual health and emotional and behavioral outcomes. The RENEW (Resilience in Emotional and Behavioral Wellbeing) intervention will employ a multidisciplinary approach of social and emotional learning competency training, gamification principles and faith-centered values to strengthen social, behavioral and emotional resilience and competencies of those at risk for behavioral and emotional disorders, via a child-as co-researcher approach.