PRAISE: Friendship Explorers
PRAISE: Friendship Explorers is a social and emotional learning (SEL) skill-building and aggression/bullying prevention program for 1st and 2nd grade students. The program provides early elementary students with foundational skills for making and improving friendships, understanding personal space, thoughts, and actions, social problem-solving within peer interactions, and asking for support when needed.
Like Friend to Friend and PRAISE: Friendship Voyagers, Friendship Explorers includes a focus on relational forms of aggression. It also equips teachers and school staff with the knowledge and skills to implement effective aggression and bullying prevention programming and to feel more confident in their ability to address behavioral challenges among their students. Friendship Explorers was designed using a community-based participatory approach in partnership with the School District of Philadelphia following the successful studies of PRAISE: Friendship Voyagers and feedback from our school partners that they wanted a similar relatable, feasible to implement, and sustainable curriculum for early elementary grades given it is a pivotal developmental period for developing positive social and emotional skills and learning to navigate peer conflict successfully.
- How PRAISE: Friendship Explorers Works
- For 1st and 2nd graders
- Approximately 16 lessons (varies across grades)
- 25-30 minutes, 1 lesson per week
- Brief activities that can be used to generalize skills throughout the week. They vary in format (e.g., discussion topics, writing prompts, cartoon worksheets, role plays, videos, etc.) and length (e.g., 5-15 minutes).
- Teacher-led with training and coaching from CHOP
- Summary sheets for parents that include support for skills generalization at home
- Evidence-Base for PRAISE: Friendship Explorers
A qualitative study of teachers was conducted in three schools to inform program development. Through a modified grounded theory approach, themes were identified, including (1) the importance of and strategies for establishing rules and expectations (e.g., collaborative, positive, routine-oriented); (2) social/emotional behavioral needs (e.g., physical spatial awareness, collaboration, emotional regulation, relational and verbal aggression); (3) teacher trainings that include trauma-informed approaches; (4) strategic and flexible scheduling (e.g., the use of non-academic times like community/morning meetings), (5) alignment with district mandates, (6) engaging activities and examples that are relevant to their population and responsive to all student needs (e.g., fidgets, physical activities), (7) include parent involvement and school-family communication. Based on these findings combined with a systematic literature review, Friendship Explorers was developed and is currently being pilot tested (see ‘Current Research’ below).
- Current Research
The CHOP Research Track Faculty Pilot Program (2023-2025) is funding the development and pilot testing of the Friendship Explorers program in up to four Philadelphia schools. We will examine program acceptability and feasibility and also preliminarily explore if the program leads to positive changes in student outcomes (e.g., bullying/aggressive behaviors, emotion regulation, use of prosocial problem-solving strategies) and school staff outcomes (e.g., efficacy to promote social-emotional skills in students). We will also explore how this program builds communication between students and their parents about social-emotional learning and social behaviors and relationships.
- Recommended Resources
