Div. 49 Student Poster Presentation winner

Social Emotional Learning Through Charitable Giving, Anna Thompson,  University of Montana. Poster presented at the 126th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, California August 2018.

There is little documentation on the process of helping children donate money or items to charities. Despite the fact that children participate in charitable giving, research shows little evidence of children or teens giving to charities. This study is comprised of seventh formers (i.e. seventh graders who are 12- and 13-years-old) primarily from a small village in Ukraine, population around 4,000, and demonstrates the power of group process as a teaching tool. The Empowering Through Aid (ETA) program is a group program designed to assist adults in teaching children about charitable giving. The program has been designed to be used in any setting. It can be overseen by parents, teachers or a single adult who is interested in helping children give to charities. While any adult could use this program, it is created for family use (i.e. parent(s) and their children). There are multiple benefits to allowing children to work as a group, as opposed to working as an individual. Having a support system, group cohesion, an increase in productivity and generating ideas as well as refining them. Nonetheless, there are issues that may also arise from group work such as, conflicting ideas and unequal participation. The ETA is designed to give all the children a chance to express themselves and obtain support from the other children. It is a structured, charitable program that addresses social emotional learning such as confidence, leadership and empathy. This program not only teaches children about giving but also allows them to grow as individuals by helping the community through critical thinking. During the program’s ten weeks, adolescents work on problem solving as a group, learning information about the world, and exploring important issues, e.g. different perspectives and opinions, diversity, and morals. While program’s concentration is for the adults and children of all ages, this study focused on one population from Ukraine. Participation was open and free to all students who wanted to participate. The students who participated in this study were interested in giving back to the community by following an enjoyable and healthy method. This program recorded how the students’ feelings, thoughts and attitudes changed over time using pretest and post-test. Individual student improvement during the ETA program will be discussed. Group observations, follow-up questions, reflections on quality of work and an evaluation of the group’s chosen action project is used in documenting the program’s positive effectiveness.