Assessment company Apperson, Inc., and the Devereux Center for Resilient Children – a prevention-focused service of the nonprofit organization Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health – today announced the launch of a new company, Aperture Education, that provides strength-based assessments and resilience-building resources to help schools and out-of-school-time organizations address the whole child.
Since 2013, Apperson and Devereux have collaborated on the publishing of products and services to address social and emotional learning in school-aged children.
“We are excited to bring these organizations together to promote and encourage social and emotional well-being in children,” said Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health President and CEO Robert Kreider. “Aperture Education will help schools and community programs place a clear focus on non-academic factors that are essential to a student’s success.”
The primary goal of Aperture Education is to ensure members of school and out-of-school time communities, including adults, have the social and emotional skills needed to thrive.
“Aperture Education is a socially conscious company that is rooted in the belief that our children hold the promise for a better tomorrow,” said Aperture Education CEO Jessica Adamson. “We are committed to ensuring that children have the skills and mindsets necessary to be successful, happy citizens who can positively contribute to their communities. We benefit from the support of Devereux and Apperson to continue this important mission as Aperture Education.”
The new company offers products and services to support educators, student support personnel, administrators and out-of-school time professionals as they implement social and emotional learning (SEL) programs within their organizations, including Evo Social/Emotional, a K-8 online assessment and intervention tool that uses the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) to help educators measure students’ SEL skills and implement individualized, classroom and school-wide strategies for instruction and intervention. Evo Social/Emotional is currently available for grades K-8; a high school version will be released for the 2017-2018 school year.
Both Apperson and Devereux will remain independent organizations. Apperson will focus on academic testing and assessment solutions for K-12 and higher education. Devereux’s Center for Resilient Children will continue to provide resources and research to promote social and emotional development, foster resilience and build skills for school and life success in young children, and foster and promote resilience in children and adults. The Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) and other early childhood resources created by the Devereux Center for Resilient Children will continue to be published by the Kaplan Early Learning Company.
About Aperture Education
Aperture Education is a social enterprise focused on addressing the whole child. Its social-emotional learning (SEL) solution, Evo Social/Emotional, is based on the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA), a standardized, strengths-based measure of critical social and emotional skills such as personal responsibility, self-management, relationship skills and healthy decision-making. The Evo Social/Emotional online platform includes both the DESSA assessment and the DESSA-Mini, a brief, universal screener of social and emotional competence. Evo Social/Emotional also provides strategies to strengthen social and emotional skills. Version 2.0, now available, provides the data needed to help SEL program administrators measure the impact of their programs and to help educators understand students’ SEL needs and strengths. For more information, go to www.ApertureEd.com.
