Raising kids who care about others and the common good.
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Read the latest from Making Caring Common! You’re in the right place for our media coverage, general updates, and press releases. Topics include: Access and Equity, Bias, Bullying, Caring and Empathy, College Admissions, Gender, MCC Update, Misogyny and Sexual Harassment, Moral and Ethical Development, Parenting, Romantic Relationships, School Culture, Trauma, and Youth Advisory Board.

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Read the latest from Making Caring Common!

You’re in the right place for our media coverage, blog posts, and event information. Our work spans a range of topics, all connected by our commitment to elevate caring and concern for the common good at school, at home, and in our communities. You can review what’s new below or use the dropdowns to sort by topic and category.

Be sure to join our email list and connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, to stay current with Making Caring Common’s news and updates. If you’re a member of the media, please visit our Media Room.


Posts in Events
July 29 Webinar: Caring Schools Network Info Session

Making Caring Common’s Caring Schools Network (CSN) supports K-12 schools in cultivating strong, caring school communities that nurture students’ social, emotional, and academic commitments and skills they need to care for people who are different from them and build caring, just communities.

Join us to learn more about the following:

  1. How we support schools

  2. How schools improve their culture and climate

  3. Ways to become involved

We look forward to seeing you and answering your questions!

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Webinar: Building Relationships by Sharing Stories Part 1

Storytelling is a powerful tool for eliciting emotion and curiosity. It can be especially valuable in prompting students to reflect on their own identities and values, and to recognize that despite people’s differing stories, we all share commonalities. Stories allow us to bridge difference through understanding and connecting emotionally with others, even when we are physically apart. This session will share a strategy in which students identify and investigate their personal set of values and what/who matters to them. Students will use these values to guide the telling of (and making sense of) their own story.

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Webinar: Activating Student Leaders to Build Community

Creating an equitable, inclusive school culture can be key in preventing a wide array of social and emotional problems and promoting the development of caring, responsible, and respectful children, even when school is remote. Because students primarily take signals from other students about social norms and what is ethically acceptable, and because students have inside knowledge about social dynamics, it is mainly students – especially acting together – who can change norms. One way to empower students to create positive social norms is by creating school climate committees comprised of students who work with peers and staff to develop these norms. This session focuses on the School Climate Committee, a strategy designed to help students – and adults – work collaboratively to shape their school environment. This session focuses on:

  • how to create a strong, effective committee of youth leaders that represents a diversity of voices among the student body and works with school staff to prevent bullying and other school social problems

  • how to use data to inform decision making and improve school climate, including creating more caring, inclusive social norms

  • how to provide students with a sense of agency and empowerment

We look forward to sharing evidence-based best practices. This will be an interactive experience, so we look forward to hearing what's working in your school community too! Please email caringschools@makingcaringcommon.org with any questions.

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Webinar: Expressing Care to Build Relationships

Research shows that acting with kindness and care makes people feel good by building connections with others and reinforcing a positive view of themselves. This sense of connection is all the more important in a time when students may not be interacting in person. Kindness and caring are contagious—they can spread and influence people to do good deeds beyond their existing networks.

This session will share a strategy to help students practice intentional acts of caring and to share and learn from their experiences. Learn how to help students reflect on and discuss how to encourage more kindness and caring, for themselves and others, at their school and beyond. They will practice regular intentional acts so they become routine and normalized parts of students’ lives. The activity encourages a variety of kind and caring acts, including self-care.

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Webinar: Sharing Gratitude to Strengthen Connections

Research shows that gratitude is a predictor of both physical and mental well-being and can be regarded as a moral emotion related to recognizing the feelings and intentions of others. In turn, gratitude can lead to increased motivation to reciprocate and extend generosity to others.

In this session, hosted by Harvard’s Making Caring Common project, educators will explore a strategy to help students recognize and express gratitude to others in school and beyond. Click through to learn more and register today!

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Webinar: Caring Questions and Deep Listening

Whether students are younger or older - learning in person or online - asking caring questions and listening to others can set the stage for sharing and promoting trust and connection in the classroom. Helping students learn and practice these skills can help them build relationships, understand their own thoughts and feelings and those of others, and make them feel heard.

In this webinar from Harvard’s Making Caring Common project, now available on demand, educators will learn strategies for building a caring community by developing student listening skills. Click through to watch now!

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Webinar: Building Relationships with Moral Empathy

Helping students develop greater empathy is essential for building a positive school climate, but equally important is considering who students have empathy for. Children and adults alike are predisposed to empathize for those who are in their own social group. But empathy for many different kinds of people is important in its own right; it is the basis for children’s developing conceptions of and commitments to fairness and justice.

In this on-demand webinar from Harvard’s Making Caring Common Project, educators will explore our Circle of Concern strategy, which is designed to help children become more aware of those for whom they do and do not have empathy.

Click through to watch the webinar now!

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Webinar: Caring For All Students in Times of Need

Ensuring that every student has a positive relationship with at least one school adult is more important – and harder – than ever.

Whether students are learning from a distance or in a traditional setting, a positive connection to at least one school adult — whether a teacher, counselor, sports coach, or other school staff member — can have tremendous benefits that include increased engagement, reduced bullying, and improved social-emotional capacities.

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