Character Playbook - Character Education Curriculum | United Way (2024)

Our Mission

To provide an evidence-based solution for schools to begin conversations on why character education and positive relationships matter in middle school.

We achieve this mission by connecting local middle schools with the Character Playbook Curriculum, which provides evidence-based strategies to educate students on how to cultivate and maintain healthy relationships during their critical middle school years.

Character Playbook’s self-guided, interactive lessons help students develop simple, actionable strategies. Real-world scenarios prime students for long-term behavioral change using problem-solving and self-reflection activities. Detailed score reports and offline extension activities help teachers maximize their impact across all students. Additionally, each lesson has a pre- and post-assessment with real-time score reporting.

What is Character Playbook?

The Character Playbook is an innovative and evidence-based digital curriculum for middle school students. It’s focused on positive character development and building healthy relationships. 43 schools and 5,970 students participated in Character Playbook online from home during the 2020-2021 school year.

The Character Playbook – Building Healthy Relationships curriculum is comprised of six modules covering key concepts around positive character development, social-emotional learning (SEL), and building healthy relationships. This program educates students on how to cultivate and maintain healthy relationships. The six lessons include:

• • LESSON 1 – Analyzing Influences
  • LESSON 2 – Understanding Emotions
  • LESSON 3 – Communicating Effectively
  • LESSON 4 – Resolving Conflicts
  • LESSON 5 – Stepping In
  • LESSON 6 – Making Decisions

According to the Issue Brief by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Importance of Peer Relationships for Social-Emotional Development (2018), “All children experience occasional social stressors and peer conflicts, and 10 to 15 percent experience serious and chronic peer difficulties, including rejection, social exclusion, and victimization.” Dealing with peer group dynamics and making and keeping friends requires one to be able to understand their own emotions, communicate effectively, and problem-solve through situations.

The EVERFI Character Playbook builds online learning programs around critical skills (STEM, Financial Literacy, Social Emotional Learning) and allows students to engage with true-to-life scenarios, including bystander intervention strategies and positive relationship examples. The curriculum also provides an impact-driven way for local United Ways to partner with their local NFL teams while making a measurable impact in the community. Character Playbook is sponsored by United Way NCA and the Washington Football Team Charitable Foundation.

The curriculum is best suited to be incorporated into Health or PE classes, during Advisory or Homeroom periods.

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How To Help

Any school that is interested in learning more about how to bring Character Playbook to their school can contact United Way NCA to schedule a presentation. EVERFI will outreach to all middle and high schools in the region and schools can choose to supplement their curriculums with Character Playbook. All of EVERFI’s resources are free to educators, with a dedicated schools team whose sole job is to work with teachers and get them to utilize the program. They provide training and support for any educator that wants to take part in the program.

Know a local middle school that could benefit from the Character Playbook curriculum?

Email Erica Louison atelouison@uwnca.org to find out more about potential partnership opportunities.

Our Partners

Character Playbook is made possible with the support of our partners.

• United Way Worldwide
• National Football League (NFL)
• Washington Football Charitable Foundation
• EverFi