Evaluation of the SPARK child mentoring program: a social and emotional learning curriculum for elementary school students
Open accessAbstract
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs seek to enhance social and emotional competencies in children, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. By means of direct instruction regarding social and emotional competencies, SEL programs have the potential to strengthen resilience in children and thus their capacity to effectively cope with life's challenges. Strengthening resilience in children who are repeatedly exposed to adverse experiences, particularly those from economically disadvantaged minority backgrounds, is of particular importance and has implications for the prevention of a multitude of problems later in life. Our study reports the result of an investigation of the SPARK Child Mentoring program, a resilience-focused SEL program designed to reduce risk factors, uncover innate resilience, promote natural emotional well-being, and facilitate school success. We employed a randomized controlled trial comprising 94 elementary school students that included pre- and post-intervention measurements. After controlling for pre-intervention levels, we found a significant difference between students' understanding of underlying program principles; communication, decision making, and problem-solving skills; emotional regulation; and resilience for students who received the intervention compared to students who did not receive the intervention. These results provide initial evidence for the efficacy of the SPARK Child Mentoring program with a diverse sample of elementary school students and adds to the existing literature base concerning positive outcomes associated with SEL programs. We discuss implications for future research focused on long-term preventive effects of the program and the characteristics of students most likely to benefit from it.
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The SBM program helped students develop interpersonal communication, problem solving, and decision-making skills.
“The program also helped students develop a variety of skills, such as interpersonal communication, problem solving, and decision-making (Meltzer et al., 2020; Green et al., 2021, 2022).”
From Outcome domains and assessment measures in school-based youth mentoring programs: a systematic review (2026) · cites this paper as Green et al., 2021
The Results section (page not provided) reports significant gains in communication, decision-making, and problem-solving skills for students in the intervention group. The intervention described in the paper is the SPARK Child Mentoring program, however; our copy does not establish that it is the SBM program named in the claim. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe SBM program improved mental health.
“mental health (Crooks et al., 2017; Meltzer et al. (2020); Green et al.,2021, 2022;)”
From Outcome domains and assessment measures in school-based youth mentoring programs: a systematic review (2026) · cites this paper as Green et al., 2021
The Results sections on emotional regulation and resilience report significant improvements among children who received the SPARK Child Mentoring program. The paper describes SPARK as a school-based social and emotional learning program, but it does not report a direct measure of mental health or establish that school-based mentoring programs generally improve it. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe SBM program increased resiliency.
“resiliency (Green et al., 2021, 2022)”
From Outcome domains and assessment measures in school-based youth mentoring programs: a systematic review (2026) · cites this paper as Green et al., 2021
Among the studies reviewed, significant positive outcomes were observed even with short mentoring durations of 3 to 9 months.
“In contrast, among the studies we reviewed, significant positive outcomes were observed even with short mentoring durations of 3 to 9months (e.g., Green et al., 2021; Simões and Alarcão, 2014; Meltzer et al., 2020).”
From Outcome domains and assessment measures in school-based youth mentoring programs: a systematic review (2026) · cites this paper as Green et al., 2021
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Flagged first, then by citations
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Effects of the SPARK teen mentoring program for high school students
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Self-citationTiraieyari, N., & Krauss, S. (2026) · Frontiers in Education · doi:10.3389/feduc.2026.1518053
- Authors
- Green, A. L., Ferrante, S., Boaz, T. L., Kutash, K., & Wheeldon-Reece, B.
- Affiliations
- University of South Florida (US)
- Corresponding author
- Green, Amy L.
- ORCID
- Green, Amy L.
- Venue
- The Journal of Primary Prevention
- Published
- 2021-08-17
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 531-547
- ISSN
- 0278-095X (ISSN-L)
- 1573-6547
- PMC
- PMC8384824
- OpenAlex
- W3194591695
- Cited by
- 38
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3
- FWCI
- 7.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- The Journal of Primary Prevention (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Early Childhood Education and Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Youth Development and Social Support
- Keywords
- social-emotional learning, resilience, elementary school students, emotion regulation, communication skills, decision-making, problem solving, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, adverse childhood experiences, program efficacy, preventive interventions
- MeSH terms
- Mentoring, Child, Curriculum, Emotions, Humans, Schools, Students, Program Evaluation
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