A Pilot Social Skills Group for Socially Disorganized Children

Abstract

This article reports on the setting up and running of two social skills groups within the Bedfordshire and Luton Community NHS Trust. Groups were established in response to an increase in referrals of 'socially disorganized' children to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), and a lack of local services to meet these children's needs. As a pilot project, outcome measures were used preand immediately post-group in an attempt to assess the short-term impact of the intervention and parents response to the initiative. Results were encouraging with children and parents expressing support for the experience, and positive changes in behaviour were reported. Some of the difficulties involved in running such groups in a busy clinical service are discussed.

Psychosocial Educational Groups for Students (PEGS)

“…The results from this study extend the body of literature on group work in elementary schools. That is, in addition to supporting prior research in this area (i.e., Bostic & Anderson, 2009;Horne et al, 2003;Savidge et al, 2004;Shechtman, 2002), we found that school-based psychoeducational groups can be used for both intervention and prevention purposes. Children whose test results initially indicated clinical deficits showed improvement and children whose test results initially indicated no clinical deficits also showed improvement.…”

“…Not all children, however, learn these skills or know how to identify when these skills are appropriate (Horne et al., 2003). Children who do not know basic social skills can have difficulty maintaining relationships with peers or adults (Savidge et al., 2004) are frequently rejected by peers (Elksnin & Elksnin, 2006; Horne et al., 2003) and may have mental health problems (Elksnin & Elksnin, 2006). Psychoeducational groups conducted in the schools may be beneficial in increasing social skills and decreasing problem behaviors in children who have not sufficiently developed these skills or fail to use them in appropriate situations (LeCroy, 2009).…”

“…Psychoeducational groups have long been used to address a variety of problems and issues within the school system (Mishna & Muskat, 2004). Groups have been used to approach social skill deficits and problem behaviors (Dennison, 2008; Savidge, Christie, Brooks, Stein, & Wolpert, 2004) and problem-solving deficits (Dore, Nelson-Zlupko, & Kaufman, 1999), to enhance learning (Carnahan, Musti-Rao, & Bailey, 2009; Dangwal & Kapur, 2009; Harris, Yuill, & Luckin, 2008), to treat depression and improve self-esteem, (Merrell, 2001) and to address bullying (Newman-Carlson & Horne, 2004). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcome of a new psychosocial intervention program, Psychosocial Educational Groups for Students (PEGS).…”

Efectos comportamentales de un programa de habilidades sociales en jóvenes de 14 a 18 años en situación de vulnerabilidad

“…Todo esto ha llevado al desarrollo de investigaciones que permitan probar la efectividad del entrenamiento en habilidades sociales como instrumento para resolver diversos problemas psicológicos, tales como ansiedad y fobia social (Spence et al, 2000;Inglés, 2009); rechazo social (Sim et al, 2006); conductas desadaptadas y violencia (Nitkowski, Petermann, Büttner, Krause y Petermann, 2009), así como conducta antisocial, delincuencia y adicciones (Savidge et al, 2004). La mayoría de estos instrumentos han demostrado su efectividad en la adquisición, generalización y mantenimiento de las conductas positivas entrenadas, así como para la disminución de conductas problema (Dib y Sturmey, 2007).…”

CBT in paediatric and adolescent health settings: A review of practice-based evidence

“…Recent published interventions include CBT techniques but are described as 'adapted' for specific populations. An example of this is a recent paper by Savidge et al [21], who interviewed children and families to 'co-create' the focus and content of a programme for children with social skills difficulties, then used CBT to develop the content of the group activities. A similar group programme for young people who had a variety of psychological and developmental difficulties with difficulties relating in social situations, used problem-solving approaches, core cognitive skills (thought identification and challenging, etc.…”