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Michigan Virtual

Michigan Cares: Free SEL and mental health lessons and data reporting for schools and districts

With support from the state of Michigan, the most comprehensive mental health and prevention education program and social emotional learning (SEL) programming is now available to schools and districts at no cost!

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Navigate360 and Michigan Virtual have teamed up to offer Michigan Cares to support school districts, educators, parents, and students through a highly customizable, scaffolded curriculum containing more than 1,300 lessons that address real issues that K-12 students encounter every day.

Administrators can utilize free data reporting to see the real-time effectiveness of the SEL and mental health lessons.

The evidence for SEL is crystal clear

The evidence is increasingly clear that students benefit greatly from an education that goes beyond academics to foster their social & emotional development.

Research shows that a focus on SEL leads to dramatic improvements in academic performance, student behavior, and lifetime outcomes. In fact, a 2015 study from Columbia University found an average return-on-investment of 11:1 for evidence-based SEL programs.

Student outcomes​

The digital lessons available cover a variety of topics that help children in grades K-12 learn to:

  • Understand and manage their emotions
  • Set and achieve positive goals
  • Feel and show empathy for others
  • Establish and maintain positive relationships
  • Make responsible decisions
  • Recognize signs of poor mental health in themselves and others
  • Develop healthy coping techniques

CASEL alignment

All lessons are evidence-backed, with much of the content aligned with the standards developed by the National Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and mapped to the grade-specific learning objectives published by various federal and state education boards.

Why choose Michigan Cares?

Because the Michigan Cares portal has been paid for by the state, there are additional features available to schools and districts through this grant opportunity:

  • Hundreds of lessons that cover a broad range of student SEL needs
    • Digital professional development  lessons for staff that correspond with every student lesson
    • Teacher self-care lessons 
  • Reporting features including:
    • Student usage/engagement
    • Impact on class or school climate
    • Teacher usage/engagement
  • Easy student information system (SIS) integration and rostering with Clever and Classlink
  • Beginning and end-of-year SEL skills assessments for students 
  • Pre- and post-tests to gauge learning outcomes 

Over 1,300 grade-appropriate lessons!

  • Mental health
  • Stress management
  • Time management
  • Goal-setting
  • Nutrition and wellness
  • Anger management
  • Social media use (pressures and responsible use)
  • Drugs & Alcohol (vaping)
  • Bystander intervention
  • Social awareness
  • Academic success
  • Respect
  • Community service
  • And many more!
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Five programs to customize

There are a few different programs developed by Evolution Labs that you can choose from when customizing your school or district’s mental health program, including:

Student Programming

Character development and social emotional learning program for students
included

Parent Programming

Support programming for parents to equip them to be your school's ally by addressing social and emotional issues at home
included

Staff Programming

Support programming that equips staff with SEL strategies, talking points, and professional development.
included

Mental Health & Prevention Programming

Support programming that addresses tough mental health and safety topics and helps students understand what to do if they or someone they care about experiences symptoms of a mental health problem.
included

Intervention & Restorative Practices Programming

Intervention and restorative justice programming for students who commit infractions. Schools can add this customized program onto their bundle for an additional $3,250 per building.
additional fee

Schools love Michigan Cares

Michigan Cares changes school climate

Michigan Cares provides data-driven SEL

Add on a restorative justice program for an additional cost

Educators and legislators now recognize that detention and suspension do not positively impact student behavior — and in many cases reward bad behavior. This programming enables educators to assign lessons to students related to their infraction. Professionally developed around a discipline matrix, lessons cover a wide range of infractions, helping kids learn from their actions and reduce recidivism. The healthiest and most effective way to address challenging behavior is to approach each incident as a learning opportunity and an exercise in empathy.

You can add intervention & restorative justice programming onto your customized bundle for an additional $2,750 per building, with a $500 setup and training fee.

Add intervention program

Are you a parent?​

Michigan Cares can help your child manage their emotions and mental health.

Sign up today!
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Limited Course Capacity

We’re sorry to inform you that we have reached capacity for several of our Semester 1 and Trimester 1 courses. You’ll notice when attempting to enroll students in our Student Learning Portal that some courses are unavailable. While we are no longer accepting new enrollments for these courses at this time, many courses continue to remain open for enrollment.

With many students across the state 100% remote, demand for our online courses is greater than ever before. Because every course we offer is taught by a Michigan-certified teacher, this high volume of enrollments has created capacity issues for our teachers who provide each and every student with individual feedback.

While the Michigan Virtual team anticipated and planned for significant increases in student enrollments this Fall, the increased demand we’ve experienced has been unprecedented. As a result, we are taking steps to hire even more part-and full-time teachers to support larger numbers of student enrollments for Semester 2 as well as for Trimester 2 and 3. 

For schools that still need online learning options this year, please fill out the form at the bottom of our virtual pathways page to meet with someone to discuss other solutions. While some of our teacher-led courses are full, we may still have the capacity to help you in upcoming terms or can discuss timing to implement a whole-school or collaborative program in which local teachers from your school/district use our online course content to teach students. We also have free course content and resources available for you to use.

We know this is an incredibly stressful time for all, and we’re sorry if the courses you’re looking for are unavailable. We never want to turn away a student who wants to learn from us. Our top concern, however, is student success, and we have a policy to not take on additional enrollments if we cannot guarantee that all students will have a quality online learning experience. 

We appreciate your patience and understanding as we navigate the unusually high volume of enrollments we are receiving.