Running head: ELEMENTARY Group Counseling 1

Elementary School Group Counseling Curriculum

Emily L. Hong Daniel

For Patty Cowick

CPSY 613: Group Counseling Skills

University of San Francisco

ELEMENTARY Group Counseling 2

Elementary School Group Counseling Curriculum

Friendship is Magic: A Ten Week Group

Making friends as a young child is arguably one of the most important milestones in

healthy human development. Having friends give children opportunities beyond the csandbox.

At any age, having friends provides support and promotes mental health and well-being.

Friends provide more than just playmates friendships can give children chances to develop

emotionally and morally; to learn vital social skills, like communication, empathy, and

cooperation; and to navigate the complex situations that are bound to arise in peer relationships.

Rationale

Elementary schools have become fixated on the academic success of students in order to

have quantitative data to defend funding decisions. This movement tends to lead to the

suspension of lesson plans that promote positive social and emotional development, likely

because social and emotional development cannot be clearly quantified. Moreover, the lower

focus on positive social and emotional growth has led to more behavioral problems.

Because elementary schools no longer prioritize social skills education, the consequences

are suffered by students who are then referred to school counselors and social workers for

behavioral and social interventions, and sometimes, individual therapy. Depending on the type

of referral, counselors work to place students with similar referrals into groups to provide

support for as many children as possible. One such group is a social skills group that focuses on

friendship. Friendship is a way to observe and understand social and emotional growth in young

children. By using the topic to guide the group sessions, counselors have the opportunities to
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meet students lacking in such social skills and provide a safe environment to discover methods to

strengthen existing friendships and to establish new friendships.

Objectives

1. Identify qualities of a positive friendships

2. Apply and analyze qualities into their own friendships
3. Understand common friendship problems
4. Learn how to deepen and improve current friendships

Practicalities

Time and Duration. Every Tuesday after recess for ten hour-long sessions

Location. Wellness Center Group Space

Group Size. Closed group of 4-8 second graders identified by teachers

Screening

After referrals given by teachers of students who may benefit from a social skills group

focused on friendship, the screening process will take a few days and involve a classroom

observation and one individual meeting for each child. During the observations, there is an

intentional observation to see if each referred child has the capacity to learn, has motivation to

learn or lead, and is not completely anti-social. In each individual meeting, it is critical to

identify the strengths of each child and to gauge interest or need of the child in being in the

group. The hope is that each child will be able to contribute and gain something to each meeting.

Before selection, group dynamics and individual personalities will be taken into account.

Procedures

Group meetings will entail many different group activities. Given the age of the

participants, I will employ ice breakers and games to get the students in tune with their bodies. I

foresee using a lot of movement and games. While the group is starting out, using dyads or
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smaller groups could be very useful. I think that role plays will be useful when trying to

illustrate particular instances and help with perspective changing and positive relationship

building.

Ground Rules & Group Agreements

I will have my group come up with their own groups; however, I have a few ground rules

and group agreements that I hope to steer my group towards:

1. Safety of self and others comes first physically and emotionally

2. Keep our group space clean
3. One person, one microphone
4. Always be kind in the group
5. Respect boundaries
6. Respect confidentiality; no gossip
7. Be open to suggestions and change
8. Be on time
9. Be present

Weekly Topics

1. What is Friendship? (Introduction)

2. Friends Listen
3. Friends Talk
4. Respect
5. Include Me
6. Including Others
7. Problem Solving 101
8. Friends Work Together
9. Empathy

10. Friendship is Magic (Celebration/Conclusion/Termination)

Evaluation Measures

To determine if the group is effective, students will participate in the final group. During

this group, the topic will be the past sessions and how much the students feel like they have

learned. This is purely subjective and qualitative in nature. I feel that when done correctly,

students can and will provide honest and potentially brutal feedback. Another way that I would
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measure group effectiveness will be determined via short surveys given to the teachers. Teachers

will have better insight and perspective into the children who are referred to the group. These

surveys will be both quantitative and qualitative in nature.

Sample Lesson Plan for a Psychoeducational Group

Friends Talk

Learning Outcomes
Notice different tones of voice and body language
Practice changing tones of voice and body language to imply different meanings
Identify ways in which tone of voice and/or body language signify different
emotions
Materials Required
Chart Paper or Board
Tone of Voice Theater Script (Appendix A)
Lesson
Introduction: 5 minutes
Introduce the topic and the two concepts:
Body Language: Communicating ideas using gestures and facial expressions
Tone of Voice: Feeling other people can hear in voices when you say something
Instructional Activities: 30-45 minutes
1. Ask for some examples of feelings.
2. Write a list of the feelings that students come up with on chart paper.
3. During this activity, you will want to differentiate between physical states and
feelings. For example, if students mention feelings like hunger or tiredness,
acknowledge that these are physical responses, not the same as emotional feelings.
Activity 1: Body Language Activity
The goal of this game is to communicate feelings without using words.
1. Students will stand.
2. Call out a feeling using the list that students created.
3. The students will use their faces and bodies to communicate that feeling.
After a few rounds, debrief with students. Some possible questions:
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Is it easier or harder to express your feelings using words? Why?

Have you ever had a friend say that he is feeling a certain way (like happy), but his
body shows that he is feeling different (like sad)?
Activity 2: Tone of Voice Activity
Ask students if they know what tone of voice is. Share an example with students.
For example, I could say the sentence, take out a pencil in a few different ways.
In a happy tone of voice, say: take out a pencil. Or...
In an angry tone of voice, say: take out a pencil.
Let students know that they will be working in small groups to perform a scene. Each
group will be given the same script, but they will perform their scenes with different
tones of voice. While each small group will have the exact same script, they will be given
different feelings to express when acting out their scenes.
Divide the students into groups (if necessary) and assign each group a feeling from the
list created before Activity 1.
Give the students about time to practice their scenes. After some time, each group will
perform the scene. After members of each group perform their scene, ask the rest of the
class to try to guess which tone of voice they were using.
Wrap-Up Activity: 10 minutes
Debrief the activities with the students. Some questions could be:
How can noticing body language help us in our friendships?
How can noticing tone of voice help us in our friendships?
Ask students to notice their friends tones of voice and body language over the next week
and see if it helps them understand how their friends are feeling.
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Appendix A

Tone of Voice Activity Script

Setting: It is recess. Character 1 and Character 2 are walking together at recess. They walk up to
Character 3 and Character 4, who are playing basketball.

Character 1:
Hi! What are you playing?

Character 2:
It looks like fun. Can we play?

Character 3:
Were playing basketball. I dont know. (Turn to Character 4) What do you think?

Character 4:
Sure, you can play with us.

Character 1:
Basketball is my favorite game. Thanks!

Character 2:
Whose team am I on? Who is my partner?

Character 3:
You can be on my team.

Character 4:
(Turn to Character 1) And you can be on my team. Lets get this game started!