Examining the effective implementation of a social and emotional learning program in elementary schools in South East Europe

Abstract

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Lions Clubs International Foundation initiated a collaboration to pilot Lions Quest Skills for Adolescence (LQSFA) in schools. In 2014, this collaboration first materialized in Serbia and was expanded to four other countries in South East Europe. The collaboration implicated relevant Ministries in charge for education curriculum in the countries in the South East Europe region and so far has reached 126 elementary schools from Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia. The process of introducing the program went through several stages, from translation, to cultural adaptation, to political negotiation, to school selection, to capacity development, to protocol of data collection and to program implementation with booster sessions and data collection and analysis. LQSFA material captures social emotional learning skills through 40 comprehensive sessions and was piloted initially for a period of one academic year in elementary schools in Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. Following the data analysis and its results, the implementation process was adapted and extended to two academic years to allow better usability of the material and greater integration in the school system. This extended modality was replicated in Croatia, however, due to COVID-19, it was additionally adapted to the lockdown situation. This experience in the South East Europe (SEE) region was key to inform the expansion of this collaboration to West Africa and Central America. This chapter describes the experience of the one-year implementation modality from the SEE region including the adapted modality due to the COVID-19 lockdown situation in Croatia.