Saleha has been a social worker in Great River's elementary program for the past five years and is now the SEL Coordinator, or Social Emotional Coordinator. She is excited that in this new position she will work with all ages school-wide! Get to know Saleha!

Biography provided by Saleha Erdmann, SEL Coordinator

Throughout my career I've been a housing advocate for adults and unaccompanied youth, a bilingual therapist with Spanish speakers, and have worked in many different schools first as an outreach worker, then school-based therapist, and finally as a school social worker for the past seven years. Outside of work I love having dance parties with my kids, gardening, and being near or on the water.

SEL Work
I believe SEL work in schools should support young people in deepening their self-awareness, sense of empowerment, and ability to engage in discomfort and conflict in healthy ways. And any conversation about SEL must be intertwined with conversation around equity.

One reason I have loved being a school social worker at Great River over the past five years is that so much social-emotional learning is already embedded in Montessori practices and the culture of our particular school. The new SEL Coordinator role is intended to identify and build off of the practices and resources we already have in place. This will include continuing to develop the Wellness curriculum that we have been piloting in elementary over the past three years and expanding those lessons into the adolescent program, as well as integrating preexisting adolescent SEL lessons. We hope to eventually have a Wellness curriculum that connects the whole school and builds off of each stage of child and adolescent development.

In addition to working on our Wellness curriculum, I will be collaborating with the members of the leadership team to review our systems around communication, behavior response and crisis response through a trauma-informed lens.

If you see Saleha in the halls, stop to say hello!