Reducing behaviour problems in young people through social competence programmes

There is a relatively strong relationship between the concepts of behavioural problems and social competence, in that social competence is regarded as one of the most important protective factors in the prevention of behavioural problems. This paper argues that the concept of social competence should include social skills, social practice and empathic understanding. It identifies the components that form part of an effective social competence programme, including enhancing an understanding of social situations, increasing the generation of adequate social skills, improving the management of provocations which may lead to uncontrolled anger, and developing empathic understanding. The evidence also suggests that effective social competence programmes for children and young people should be multi modal and consist of mixed groups of pupils with and without difficulties. The paper concludes with a brief description of Aggression Replacement Training as an example of a programme which follows the recommended guidelines.peer-reviewe

Reducing behaviour problems in young people through social competence programmes

There is a relatively strong relationship between the concepts of behavioural problems and social competence, in that social competence is regarded as one of the most important protective factors in the prevention of behavioural problems. This paper argues that the concept of social competence should include social skills, social practice and empathic understanding. It identifies the components that form part of an effective social competence programme, including enhancing an understanding of social situations, increasing the generation of adequate social skills, improving the management of provocations which may lead to uncontrolled anger, and developing empathic understanding. The evidence also suggests that effective social competence programmes for children and young people should be multi modal and consist of mixed groups of pupils with and without difficulties. The paper concludes with a brief description of Aggression Replacement Training as an example of a programme which follows the recommended guidelines

Reducing behaviour problems in young people through social competence programmes

There is a relatively strong relationship between the concepts of behavioural problems and social competence, in that social competence is regarded as one of the most important protective factors in the prevention of behavioural problems. This paper argues that the concept of social competence should include social skills, social practice and empathic understanding. It identifies the components that form part of an effective social competence programme, including enhancing an understanding of social situations, increasing the generation of adequate social skills, improving the management of provocations which may lead to uncontrolled anger, and developing empathic understanding. The evidence also suggests that effective social competence programmes for children and young people should be multi modal and consist of mixed groups of pupils with and without difficulties. The paper concludes with a brief description of Aggression Replacement Training as an example of a programme which follows the recommended guidelines

Social Competence as a Mediating Factor in Reduction of Behavioral Problems

The main purpose of the present study was to explore how social competence reduces behavioral problems. Based on previous findings, we assume that increased social competence can be regarded as a mediating factor in reducing behavior problems. All participants (children and adolescents, n ¼ 112) received an intervention intended to increase social competence: Aggresion Replacement Training (ART). Social competence and problem behavior were assessed twice before the ART intervention and then twice afterwards. Both measures improved following the training period, but no changes occurred during the pre-training period. Further, behavioral problems continued to reduce notably in follow-up probes after the training period. More detailed analyses indicate that in youngsters, increased social competence (e.g., improved self-control and cooperation) mediates the effect of ART on behavioral problems, but important moderating factors (e.g., age, individual levels of social competence, and problem behavior) need to be taken into consideration

From ART to AART. The Scandinavian Adapted version of ART

The A.R.T. program (Goldstein & Glick, 1987; Goldstein, Glick, & Gibbs, 1998; Glick & Gibbs, 2011) has gone through only minor changes through the years. This has been one of the strengths of the program indicating that the protocol should remain consistent in order to evaluate the effect of the program and also be able to replicate it in different countries. A strict protocol will also prevent trainers from making changes over time which could lead to program drift and a less effective approach. However, on several occasions Dr. Goldstein suggested that A.R.T. should be further developed according to newly available research and theory

The Genomic HyperBrowser: inferential genomics at the sequence level

The immense increase in the generation of genomic scale data poses an unmet analytical challenge, due to a lack of established methodology with the required flexibility and power. We propose a first principled approach to statistical analysis of sequence-level genomic information. We provide a growing collection of generic biological investigations that query pairwise relations between tracks, represented as mathematical objects, along the genome. The Genomic HyperBrowser implements the approach and is available at http://hyperbrowser.uio.no

Social Emotional Competence – too much or too little

When we measure social competence, the scores indicate that a person can become better and better just as in other school subjects such as history or geography. In general, these scores also give an actual picture of the status and/or progress of the person’s social competence. However, it might be preferable to portray many of the dimensions of social competence as a continuum where the optimal level could be in the middle rather than at one of the ends. That is to say, social initiatives could take place too often or too seldom, or a person could take others’ needs into consideration too little, but also too much, to the detriment of his or her own needs. This implies that the overall purpose in a training social and emotional learning program might at the same time involve training some participants to do less of something and others to do more. The present article reflects on different continua involved in social competence training and suggests that the facilitator needs to analyse the needs of each of the participants in a group and adapt the training program accordingly. The implications for conducting a program, composition of programs and for the training of facilitators are also discussed

Sosial persepsjons trening. Manual for trenerkurs

Denne manualen er dels en oversettelse og tilpasning av Gundersen, moynahan og Strømgrens upubliserte kapitel i den nye Prepare-boka og dels noen erfaringer med programmet fra Rørvika Ungdommsenter, Fauske. Presis tolking av sosiale situasjoner er kanskje det viktigste elementet for å gjennomføre en vellykket sosial interaksjon. Hvilke stimuli du utleder i en gitt situasjon og hvordan du tolker disse stimuli har direkte betydning for hvilke responser du velger som svar på stimuliene

Implementering av ART. Kvalitetssikrende retningslinjer og rutiner

Å lykkes med implementering av evidensbaserte programmer og få gode resultater av programmet forutsetter både høy program- og implementeringskvalitet. Selv om vi gjennom kurs og andre skriv har gitt tydelige anbefalinger om hvordan et program som ART skal implementeres, så ser vi at det likevel er stor variasjon i hvordan programmet faktisk har blitt gjennomført. Fagfeltet har også etterspurt en mer helhetlig modell for implementering, inkludert kvalitetssikrende retningslinjer og rutiner. Dette er bakgrunnen for at vi nå har utarbeidet implementeringsmodellen som presenteres i denne manualen. Det er i år 10 år siden videreutdanningen i Trening i sosial kompetanse ble startet opp ved Diakonhjemmet Høgskole, og det er erfaringer fra denne perioden vi har innarbeidet i den forskningsbaserte implementeringsmodellen til Fixen et al (2005)