Help students belong
SEL Advisory Facilitation Program
SEL Advisory Facilitation™ is a certification program for educators serving middle or high school, enabling them to lead advisory groups which offer deep social and emotional learning.
We see advisory as the heart of a great middle or high school. When implemented well, it generates trust and engagement, offers unconditional belonging, and becomes the ideal place to develop social-emotional intelligence.
Group facilitation skills are not commonly taught in teacher training, yet they are essential to leading both excellent advisory groups and more engaging academic experiences.
The SEL Advisory Facilitation™ program includes in-person training, implementation coaching, and an invitation to be part of an ongoing community of practice. See below for program curriculum and practical details, and to register for our Summer 2025 training in San Francisco.
What We’ll Learn Together
You’ll learn skills including:
• How to lead advisories where students speak honestly and listen deeply;
• Tools and teaching methods for essential social-emotional skills;
• The latest research on adolescent neuroscience and psychological development;
• Tools to teach mindfulness in advisory groups;
• Structures for advisory sessions;
• Practice handling sensitive conversations and resolving conflicts;
• How to bring more of ourselves alive in this work, becoming the teachers we know we’re capable of being.
Practical Info
What: A 3 day in-person training in July 2025, followed by implementation coaching by Zoom from September 2025 - January 2026. Learn with a tight-knit cohort of fellow educators, working together to make advisory a place of deep social-emotional learning and connection.
When & Where: July 28-30, 2025 at Presidio Knolls School in San Francisco, CA. We’ll follow a schedule designed to pace ourselves and keep our energy fresh, specifically: Monday 7/28 1:00pm - 5:00pm, Tuesday 7/29 9:00am - 4:30pm, Wednesday 7/30 9:00am - 1:00pm.
Implementation Coaching: After participating in the summer intensive, implementation coaching runs from September through January, with 1-2 Zoom calls per month. We’ll tackle the ups, downs, and nitty-gritty details of bringing these practices to life in your daily work. See the call schedule below.
Coaching Calls: Coaching calls take place from 4-5pm Pacific Time on the following dates: (1) September 10, 2025, (2) September 29, 2025, (3) October 15, 2025, (4) October 27, 2025, (5) November 12, 2025, (6) December 3, 2025, (7) January 12, 2026. For participants wanting to earn Facilitator Certification, participation is expected in at least 5 of these sessions. In cases of schedule conflicts when an alternative time can be found for a group of participants, make-up sessions are possible.
Who: For educators and school leaders working with middle and high school students, in public, charter, independent, and non-school settings.
Cost: $1,600. This includes the in-person training, curriculum materials, five months of implementation coaching, and the Certification upon completion of these steps. It does not include travel, food, or lodging expenses. Sliding-scale tuition scholarships are available: apply by completing this brief form.
What Does Certification Mean? Our vision is to define a standard of practice for excellent advisory work, to certify teachers who have completed training to this level, and then to support an ongoing community of practice. Certification means you have completed the summer in-person intensive and the implementation coaching this fall, and comes with an invitation to join our teacher community.
Program Leads: This program is co-led by Chris Balme (Argonaut Founder & Director, Founding Principal at Hakuba International School, former Head of School at Millennium School) and Abigail Henderson (Faculty Member & Advisor, Millennium School). See more about them here.
Chris Balme: Program Lead
The SEL Advisory Facilitation program is led by Chris Balme, founding Principal of Hakuba International School in Japan, and previously the co-founder and Head of School at Millennium School in San Francisco. Chris has been a leader in designing and leading innovative education programs for more than twenty years. Chris maintains a real-world connection to the techniques taught here through his student advisory program, Argonaut, where these ideas and curricula are continually tested, practiced, and developed.
Prior to this work, Chris has been a teacher, a founder and leader of award-winning youth programs, and a writer and advisor on topics in education. He’s the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship as a leading changemaker in education. His book Finding the Magic in Middle School was published in 2022, and he regularly writes on education topics. More about Chris here.
Questions?
Feel free to get in touch if you have questions about the program, or would like to talk with one of the trainers before signing up.