Partnerships to Deepen Social and Emotional Learning in Jamaica to Support Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 16

Aggression and violence amongst children have increased globally in the past decades. Within the Caribbean, this too has become a recognised trend. In Jamaica, various organisations, programmes, and projects are in place to address issues of violence amongst children and youth, particularly, within schools. Two of these programmes, INSIGHTS (focused on children’s temperaments) and Change from Within (focused on school culture change to address violence and indiscipline), are school-based initiatives implemented by a School of Education within one of the nation’s universities. Another, Operation Save Jamaica, is a non-profit charity organisation focused on sustainable development and transformation amongst individuals and communities. This chapter focuses on a partnership forged between INSIGHTS, Change from Within, Operation Save Jamaica, and an academic specialising in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), based at the Manchester Institute of Education, England. The collaborators have partnered to organise and deliver a series of webinars focused on SEL, to support Education for Sustainable Development and Peace Education within the country and, by extension, Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 16. The paper will share feedback from webinar participants and will offer insight into how partnerships such as these can broaden the reach and scope of various interventions in this area, as well as build capacity within the higher education and education sectors. It is hoped that the experiences shared will prove useful for other entities involved in similar areas and for the forging of partnerships amongst different sectors for the furtherance of sustainability.