Social Skills Groups

When a child or adolescent wants to make and maintain friendships, but is having a challenging time doing so, joining a social skills group is an important way to support a child and teach them the strategies that they will need to feel confident and succeed in connecting with peers. It is important to choose the right social skills group for a child. The group leaders, the types of children in the group, the group format and what is taught in each group determine the goodness of fit for each child.

 
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Dr. Eva provides social skills groups for motivated children and adolescents. Participants are accepted after a clinical interview to determine "goodness of fit" for the group. Once groups are formed, a tailor-made curriculum is created based on the participants’ individual goals and areas of need.  A specific social skill is covered each week and the facilitator shares a session summary highlighting the target skill with the parents weekly.  Included in the summary are recommendations to reinforce the skills and strategies in the child’s home environment.  

 

Targeted Skills Include:

Making Introductions, Following Directions, Self-Regulation, Resisting Peer Pressure, Teasing vs. Bullying, Identifying Emotions, Personal Space, Sharing, Apologizing, Being a Social Detective, Non-verbal cues, Flexibility, Dealing with Losing, Sharing, Giving and Receiving Compliments


 

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When working with adolescents groups, Dr. Eva uses the evidence-based social skills intervention UCLA PEERS.

https://www.semel.ucla.edu/peers/adolescents-certified-usa/new-jersey

Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS®) is a 16-week evidence-based social skills intervention for motivated adolescents in middle school or high school who are interested in learning ways to help them make and keep friends. 

In the groups, participants learn how to: 

  • Choose appropriate friends

  • Use appropriate social conversational skills

  • Appropriately use humor

  • Start, enter and exit conversations between peers

  • Be a good sport when playing games/sports with friends

  • Handle arguments and disagreements with friends and in relationships

  • Handle rejection, teasing, bullying, rumors/gossip, and cyber bullying

PEERS also includes a parent group equipping parents on how to:

  • Assist adolescents in making and keeping friends

  • Expand their child's social network

  • Provide feedback through coaching