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New Prevention Program Helps Middle School Challenges

News Briefs - News Briefs

Written by Jenna Bensoussan

Friday, 01 February 2008

A new, research-based program that provides middle school students with skills that promote school success and prevent bullying, substance abuse, and violence is now available from Committee for Children (CfC).

Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention is based on research that links lack of communication and social skills with many problem behaviors for middle-school-aged children, such as substance use and interpersonal violence.

The program is a complete revision for the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade versions of the award-winning Second Step: A Violence Prevention Curriculum, which has been helping children learn and practice such important skills as empathy, impulse control, anger management, and problem solving for nearly 20 years. "Educators are concerned with the growing prevalence of aggression and bullying in the middle school level. There is also a clear need to address substance abuse at this age," said Bridgid Normand, who led the team that developed the new program.

"At the same time, schools are being judged on the basis of student test results. The bad news has been that in today's school climate it is hard for schools to find the time to address these problem behaviors when they are so focused on academic achievement. The good news is that research shows that schools don't need to choose between preventing problem behaviors and promoting school success," she added.

By teaching core social and emotional skills, the new middle school curriculum addresses these needs in one integrated program.

The new program is the result of collaboration between several nationally known experts who helped identify critical issues middle school students face today and ensure that the new curriculum addresses the most up-to-date content in areas such as substance abuse, brain research, and cyber bullying.

Middle school educators' feedback also helped CfC strengthen the program's teaching strategies, multimodal approach, strong family involvement elements, and pacing. Focus groups and pilot tests were conducted during the two-and-a half-year development process.

More information and a video previews are available at http://www.cfchildren.org/programs/ssp/ms.

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