SEL4Teachers: Socio-emotional competencies for Support Teachers’ Professional Development
Asja Mallus, Daniele Bullegas, Antonello Mura
In-service professional development for support teachers is a promising setting for fostering socio-emotional competencies. It also creates opportunities to identify early professional needs related to managing relationships, emotions, and conflict in school settings. Building on recent perspectives on teacher professional development and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), this paper presents initial findings from a pilot study testing the SEL4Teachers programme. The programme was designed to support reflective practice and was delivered through a Virtual Community of Practice. The study reports participants’ perceptions of its effects, highlighting stronger emotional awareness, improved emotion-regulation skills, and greater confidence in managing relational dynamics. Overall, the findings suggest that SEL4Teachers supported professional learning through peer sharing, reflective dialogue, and the recognition of emotions as an educational resource in teaching practice.
Keywords
Social and Emotional Learning, Professional Development, Virtual Communities of Practice, mixed method approach.
