You know Camp Fire’s mission is to help kids and teens find their sparks right now. But we also know that giving youth the tools to thrive today means they’ll keep on thriving tomorrow.
So, we want to take a quick break from our usual present-focus to talk about how Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) sets kids up for success in their future workplaces.
If you’ve got a friend who’s skeptical about the importance of teaching SEL, here’s your argument: They’re going to have those social-emotional talents to get (and keep) a job!
In a recent survey of 4,000 professionals, LinkedIn discovered that companies’ top training priority was teaching their employees “soft skills”—those human traits that can’t be replicated by computers, data sets or automation. Fifty-seven percent of the leaders they talked to said those talents were more important than job-specific “hard” skills.
What skills are particularly in demand? LinkedIn says leadership, communication, collaboration and time management. All skills that social-emotional learning programs (like Camp Fire!) build toward.
LinkedIn isn’t the only one noticing how important SEL skills sets are becoming to employers. The World Economic Forum’s 2016 Future of Jobs report says it plainly:
“Overall, social skills—such as persuasion, emotional intelligence and teaching others—will be in higher demand across industries than narrow technical skills, such as programming or equipment operation and control.”
The WEF predicts 36 percent of future jobs will demand complex problem-solving skills and lists nine additional social-emotional skills that will be key in future work situations: cognitive flexibility, negotiation skills, service orientation, judgment and decision making, emotional intelligence, coordinating with others, people management, creativity and critical thinking.
Camp Fire’s Thrive{ology} framework teaches four foundational SEL practices that lead to all of these in-demand abilities. Identifying sparks, practicing a growth mindset, goal management and thriving are a social-emotional launching pad for developing all kinds of valuable know-how…now and in the future!
Want to support kids’ current and future Social-Emotional Learning? We’d love your help! Get involved, friends!
