By The Challenge Success Team
Educators have known for years that social, emotional, and cognitive processing are all neurologically intertwined and that creating a school climate of care has long-lasting protective effects for adolescents.
In the Challenge Success Student Survey, we look at belonging and connection in school through a variety of dimensions. We have found that of high school students:
- 95% are chronically sleep deprived
- 8 in 10 experienced a stress-related health symptom in the last month
- 3/4 feel chronically worried and pressured about doing well in school
- HALF don’t feel accepted at their school
- 1 in 4 doesn’t have a trusted adult connection at school
At Challenge Success, we partner with schools across the country to use evidence-based strategies and collaborative co-design processes to improve student well-being, belonging, and engagement in learning.
Read on for examples from partner schools and research-backed ways you can transform your school with a stronger climate of care!
Utilizing the S.P.A.C.E. Framework in Schools
We have organized our research-based, equity-centered strategies into a framework we call S.P.A.C.E. This framework embodies our vision to create educational systems that value each student for their unique identities, assets, and individual definitions of success and effectively prepare them for the variety of opportunities and challenges they will encounter in school and beyond.
In this blog post, we will focus on the fourth component: (C): Climate of Care.
(C): Climate of Care
We know from the research (and from our day-to-day experiences in learning environments) that students don’t learn as much when they don’t feel a sense of belonging. We also know that when kids of all ages and stages feel like a part of their community, they are more likely to thrive.
Through the Challenge Success School Partnership, schools across the country have utilized community-specific data and research-backed coaching to transform their schools into climates of care. For example, we worked with Dawson School in Colorado and Napa Unified School District in California to create various student advisory councils to guide their school communities. Another example is St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes Middle School, who focused on increasing relationship building programs between students, staff, and faculty.
4 Strategies for Creating a Climate of Care
Here are four research-backed ways your school can amplify a climate of care:
- Implement systems, structures, and routines that support student social and emotional learning, productive communication, problem-solving, and collaboration skills, such as advisory, identity-based groups, internships, home visits, and community circles.
- Incorporate a restorative justice approach that supports a trauma-informed and healing-oriented environment, such as de-escalation practices, management of conflict and emotions through dialogue and reparation of harm, and routines for self-regulation.
- Foster culturally responsive and inclusive policies and practices through which all students feel safe, seen, and supported, such as co-developing community agreements and rituals, incorporating community assets (e.g. multilingual capital, oral stories and traditions) and leveraging culturally diverse resources.
- Embody “warm demander” stances by maintaining high expectations and confidence in student successes, engaging in asset-based mentorships, establishing mutual respect and trust, and practicing regular 1:1 check-ins that affirm, offer emotional support, and encourage productive struggle.
Related: Learn more in our 2025 Kappan article, “Stressed, tired, and yearning for support.”
Ready for Action?
Learn how to collaboratively improve engagement outcomes in your school using the SPACE framework!
The Challenge Success School Partnership is an inclusive, community-driven collaboration that leverages the Challenge Success Change Process to transform the student experience within your school. Our program is a research-backed way to prioritize student well-being while also deepening engagement with learning and enhancing belonging.
Together, we will center the student experience, gather and interpret community-voice data, design research-based, equitable policy and practice changes, and create community-specific outcomes for all students. Learn more about how we can collaborate with your school community this year!
This blog post was adapted from our article in HTH Unboxed, “Nurturing Student Well-Being and Engagement through Belonging.“
Related: Bring our “Laying the Foundation for Belonging” professional development workshop to your school!
Challenge Success, a nonprofit affiliated with the Stanford Graduate School of Education – elevates student voice and implements research-based, equity-centered strategies to increase well-being, engagement, and belonging in K-12 schools.