HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — The mother of one of the first-graders killed at Sandy Hook is a step closer to accomplishing a mission she began shortly after the shooting. It’s called “social and emotional learning,” built around a message left on a chalkboard by a six-year-old.

Two of the big issues that have been talked about since Sandy Hook are gun control and mental health. Some are calling this a mental health victory.

It has become almost legendary that Jesse Lewis, one of the children shot and killed at Sandy Hook, left a scribbled message on the chalkboard in the family kitchen that said “Nurturing, healing, love.” Ironically, those three words are components of what’s “social and emotional learning.” According to child experts at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, “social and emotional learning” can make kids more stable and better equipped to grow up and demonstrate caring for others and making responsible decisions about conflict.

“Decades long studies that show that kids in pre-K that have had access to social and emotional learning become more successful adults with less mental illness and less incarceration rates,” said Lewis’s mom, Scarlett, who started a foundation centered around these concepts.

The Connecticut Office of Child Advocate has even suggested that if Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza had had this kind of learning, the shooting might not have happened.

The statistics are quite scary. Incidents of bullying have increased 21-percent over the last decade, and the increase in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is even worse.

“Since 2000, we’ve seen an increase of AHHD diagnosis of 66-percent in our children,” said Dr. Chris Kukk, director of the Compassion, Creativity and Innovation Center at Western Connecticut State University. “That’s huge.”

Friday, Lewis’s mother thanked Senator Dick Blumenthal for sponsoring the Jesse Lewis Empowering Educators Act that passed the U.S. Senate Thursday. It will make federal money available to the states to help train teachers and principals to bring “social and emotional learning” to classrooms, especially in the early grades.

“All parents need help,” Blumenthal said. “Emotional intelligence ought to be as much a part of the curriculum as math and reading.”

A similar bill has passed the U.S. House.