Making Caring Common, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, supports parents, caregivers, and educators in raising children who care for others and for the common good.
Coalition Representative
Milena Batanova, PhD, Director of Research and Evaluation
Faculty Lead
Richard Weissbourd, EdD, Faculty Director
Harvard Affiliation
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Mission / Focus
The mission of Making Caring Common is to raise kids who care about others and the common good.
By innovatively combining research, theory, the wisdom of practitioners, and strategic communications, we bring fresh, energizing, and evidence-based resources and activities to schools and parents that develop in children empathy, self-awareness, a commitment to fairness and justice, and other key moral and emotional capacities. We also work with the national media to elevate crucial conversations and to provide guidance about how to raise moral and emotionally healthy children.
Our vision is a world in which children:
- treat people well, including those who are different from them in background and character;
- come to understand and seek fairness, equity, and justice;
- develop the kinds of sturdy, caring relationships that support their own and others’ mental health and flourishing.
We believe that children with these capacities will become strong family members and friends and constructive community members and citizens who can strengthen our democracy, mend the fractures that divide us, and work together to solve our country’s urgent problems.
Areas of Study
Making Caring Common’s areas of focus include: Youth Moral and Social Development, SEL and Program Evaluation, and Youth Mental Health.
Our Research & Programs →