Social Skills Development

March 29th, 2010

Social Skills Development the Focal Point of Six Week Program for School Age Children at Marillac

On February 3, 2010, the Social Services Department presented a six week social skills group titled “How to Handle Anger” with 21 kindergarten and first graders in the School Age Department’s after school program. The group met once a week for 30 to 40 minutes and was facilitated by TaMia West, Community Counselor. The goals for this group were to help students understand their anger, the behaviors associated with these emotions, and to introduce effective coping strategies students can use to handle anger in various contexts (e.g., school, home, and community).

The majority of activities and lessons chosen for the group were significant to the concept that anger is neither good nor bad, but there are acceptable and unacceptable ways to express it. Role playing, positive reinforcement, behavior rehearsal modeling, interactive activities, and the use of personal stories were applied as methods of teaching for this social skills group.

The children were very receptive and enjoyed each session and to celebrate their success the children were given a pizza party upon completion of the program. Each child was presented with a portfolio of all the work they completed over the course of the six weeks and also included additional feelings worksheets included for the children’s leisure.