The whole child approach to education uses policies that foster safe, healthy learning environments where all students can thrive and achieve academic success. A whole child-centered education encompasses all areas of student development and learning. This approach includes school climate, student mental health, social-emotional learning, workforce skill-building, out-of-school learning opportunities and adult capacity building.
The Learning Policy Institute (LPI) designed the Whole Child Policy Toolkit to provide state policymakers and education leaders with strategies, tools and resources related to whole child policy. The toolkit is regularly updated and comes out of work from the Whole Child Policy Table, whose members include state-facing membership organizations, researchers and policy groups that work on whole child education issues.
This guide offers a condensed overview of the Whole Child Policy Toolkit, introducing the key concepts and structure of the larger document. It also provides policy examples that may not be found in the toolkit. Within the toolkit, one will find in-depth definitions, practical examples and additional resources to assist in navigating whole child policy thoroughly.
After defining whole child policy, the toolkit focuses on five policy elements:
Under each of these sections, the toolkit provides an overview of the policy element.