CHARACTER COUNTS! focuses on building students’ character skills and shaping a positive school culture. Our flexible framework emphasizes:
Our flexible framework helps PK-12 educators and students develop good character and a create positive school culture. Using research and educator feedback, we’ve created a pathway to success that highlights best practices for schools to meet academic, character, social-emotional, and school culture goals.
With the CHARACTER COUNTS! framework as a guide, we provide practical, research-based strategies, curricular resources, and professional development training. We’ll also provide best practices on incorporating CHARACTER COUNTS! into your existing character development or SEL program.
Every organization that works with young people has the opportunity to shape character, strengthen relationships, and create a positive culture.
Youth Sports & Athletics
Help coaches and athletic organizations develop sportsmanship, teamwork, leadership, accountability, resilience, and respect—on and off the field. Learn more.
Afterschool & Youth Development Programs
Create consistent expectations and meaningful opportunities for young people to develop leadership skills, build positive relationships, and practice good character.
Camps & Outdoor Education Programs
Strengthen community, responsibility, cooperation, and personal growth through character-focused experiences that reinforce lifelong values.
Mentoring Organizations
Equip mentors and program leaders with a shared language and practical tools for guiding youth toward positive choices, healthy relationships, and responsible leadership.
Juvenile Justice, Prevention & Intervention Programs
Support accountability, ethical decision-making, personal growth, and restorative practices through a strengths-based approach to character development.
Youth Leadership & Civic Engagement Programs
Prepare young people to become responsible, ethical, and engaged citizens who contribute positively to their schools, organizations, and communities.
Community & Nonprofit Organizations
Organizations that serve youth need more than programs, they need a culture that reflects their values. CHARACTER COUNTS! provides a common language and framework that aligns staff, volunteers, families, and youth around shared expectations and positive behaviors.
“I am a great fan of the CHARACTER COUNTS! online workshop and training programs. The insightful materials are professionally delivered and the concepts are easy to grasp and put into action. I found the two introductory sessions I attended motivating, engaging, and truly inspiring. Overall, they markedly exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend CHARACTER COUNTS! to educators looking to positively impact their school or youth organization by instilling strong values (and the habits to maintain them) into their students and faculty alike. My heartfelt thanks to the CHARACTER COUNTS! team at Drake University!”
– Bill Bahr, Bloomingdale CC! Coalition (IL)
Provide intentional character development within home-based education settings. Our resources support homeschool families, co-ops, learning pods, and associations seeking to teach values alongside academics.
Our services can be customized for faith-based schools and organizations. In addition to the fundamentals of CHARACTER COUNTS!, participants learn how to align scripture with Six Pillars of Character. In addition, we offer character lessons and journal prompts that incorporate scripture.
“CHARACTER COUNTS! helps motivate the students to have better character because they are recognized for their good conduct. During Religion we deal with the topics of trustworthiness, fairness, caring and citizenship. Each of these Pillars align well with the Gospel message of being kind to others and helping out.”
-Cheryl L. Jablonski, Principal, St. Joseph the Provider School (OH)
Administrators, educators, and families want safe, supportive, high-performing schools. By prioritizing character development and positive school culture, schools can see improvement in students’ character, social-emotional, and academic skills, and ensure their school is a safe and welcoming learning environment.
CHARACTER COUNTS! helps students develop the Six Pillars of Character.
Trustworthiness
Have integrity, be honest, keep promises, and be loyal to your values
Respect
Show acceptance and respect for others
Responsibility
Be accountable for actions, show perseverance and self-discipline
Fairness
Be open-minded, don’t take advantage of others, play by the rules
Caring
Show compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness
Good Citizenship
Make choices that protect the safety and rights of others
When students develop character skills, they’ll be more likely to achieve their personal, school, and career goals and become engaged, responsible, and productive citizens. You’ll notice more:
Learn more about the Six Pillars of Character.
CHARACTER COUNTS! helps students develop key social-emotional skills.
Relationship Skills
Create positive relationships and meaningful connections with family members, classmates, and teachers
Responsible Decision-Making
Make decisions based on rationality, ethics, and effectiveness
Self-Awareness
Identify and understand emotions, values, attitudes, motivations, mindsets, and personal attributes
Self-Management
Regulate emotions, attitudes, and actions, and manage negative emotions and impulses
Social Awareness
Assess and be sensitive to the feelings and needs of others
When students develop social-emotional skills, they’ll be more likely to develop positive, healthy relationships, manage their emotions, and make good choices. You’ll notice more:
CHARACTER COUNTS! helps students develop skills to be more successful in academics.
Critical and Creative Thinking
Acquire, remember, understand, and apply knowledge
Curiosity and Passion
Enthusiastic to understand more about themselves, others, and the world around them
Diligent Learner
Exhibit a growth mindset and willingness to learn from mistakes
Effective Problem-Solving
Make rational, ethical, and effective decisions to find the best solutions to problems
Self-Direction and Engagement
Fully engaged in the educational process and connected to the school community
When students develop these skills, they can reach their intellectual and academic potential. You’ll notice:
CHARACTER COUNTS! helps students, administration, faculty, and staff contribute to shaping a positive school culture.
Committed to Excellence
Value collaboration and feedback in order to grow and improve
Supportive and Respectful
Treat each other with respect, every student is connected to a caring, responsible adult in the school, and staff feel supported by the administration
Safe
Contribute to making the school a safe place to learn; a proactive, instructive, and restorative approach to student behavior
Dedicated to Stakeholders
Commitment to ensuring students’ mastery of academic content and character development.
Accepting and Encouraging
Ownership of creating a positive, welcoming learning environment where everyone can feel accepted and part of the school community
Inspired
Appreciate and trust other school community members and dedicated to making the school better
When schools focus on character development and educators teach, enforce, advocate, and model school values, you’ll notice:
GRADUATION
RATES
ELEMENTARY MATH PROFICIENCY
ELEMENTARY ENGLISH PROFICIENCY
2-year implementation results, Buffalo Schools (New York)
The success of any character education program is directly tied to the fidelity and consistency of its implementation. We offer two types of assessments:
Our interactive, professional development workshops provide strategies to teach the Six Pillars through our TEAM approach and research-based tools.
Workshops include:
Our team can collaborate with you on:
Consultations are a great way to keep your CC! program on track and provide your team with new ideas to help make you successful.
As a member of the CHARACTER COUNTS! Coalition, you’ll join an alliance of schools, districts, youth-serving organizations, businesses, and communities that are committed to spreading the message of character education using the CHARACTER COUNTS! framework and teaching the Six Pillars of Character.
Enhance your CHARACTER COUNTS! integration with engaging and impactful virtual or in-person assemblies.
We offer a variety of character education curricular resources in our online store, including:
Check out the curricular resources in our store
Let’s talk about how we can help you reach your goals.
Teach children that their character counts. Teach character skills and what they look like in action.
Enforce and encourage good character. Reward good behavior and discourage bad behavior by imposing fair and consistent consequences.
Advocate character. Continually encourage children to show good character by explaining and showing why it matters.
Model good behavior. Everything you say and do sends a message about your values. Be sure that these messages reinforce doing the right thing, even when it is difficult. When you slip, be accountable; apologize sincerely, and do better!
The Good Ideas book is full of engaging lessons and activities designed to infuse character development into your classroom. The variety of lessons allows teachers to customize and select instruction based on the learning needs of their classroom.
Each lesson can be done as a stand-alone activity, in conjunction with other lessons, or as a supplement to your already established character education program.
