About Our Curriculum 

BeFriended draws from several evidence-based social skills interventions. Children's Friendship Training (CFT) provides the backbone, but other notable programs like Steps to Respect/Second Step, Relationship Development Intervention (RDI), and the Alert Program for Self-Regulation contribute important elements. We also draw from our experience leading social skills groups and bullying prevention at John Stanford International School and a community mental health agency.

In general, our approach is based on SAFE principles of learning: sequenced, active, focused, and explicit (Promising Practices Network)

• Sequenced: We build from the most basic social and friendship skills to more complex issues
• Active: Each session has as much active learning as possible, with in-the-moment coaching, and weekly assignments that put these skills into practice at home
• Focused: Each session will focus on one friendship concept
• Explicit: The unwritten rules of friendship are made quite explicit

This curriculum will vary based on the ages of participants, but here's an example of a 12-week group program:

Week 1: Goals and Limitations

• To help child make and keep friends
• To help parents support their child’s ability to make new acquaintances and develop close friendships

Week 2: Having a Conversation

• Learning to share the conversation and listen to others (reciprocity)
• Sharing an appropriate amount of personal information (intimacy regulation)
• “Space invaders”
• Telling jokes, appropriate use of humor
• Ways for parents to encourage conversations with their children

Week 3: Strategies for Joining Groups / Reputation

• Social etiquette for joining other children at play
• How parents can find appropriate play opportunities & support their children’s efforts to join groups
• How parents can use active listening for times that children are rejected

Week 4: Taking No for an Answer

• Begin with low-risk tactics (wait, observe rules and group’s frame of reference, look for opportunities to join)
• If rejected, find ways to accept the outcome, since handling rejected bids well increases the chances of future inclusion
• Evaluate children’s social goals in competitive game situations

Week 5: Rules of a Good Sport: Social Goals

• Understanding the social goals of games and play
• Prioritize relationships and experience of play (fun!) over outcome of game

Week 6: Rules of a Good Sport: Positive Statements

• How to be good company to peers in a group or play interaction
• Use of positive statements, use of praise and agreement

Week 7: Making a Best Friend / Play Dates

• Concepts of host/guest roles and behaviors
• Using two-way conversation to find common ground activities
• Nature of parental supervision, preparing a child for a successful play date

Week 8: Resisting Teasing

• Using humor, ignoring, or assertion
• “Making fun of the tease”

Week 9: Respect Toward Adults

• Maintaining respectful attitude when problems arise
  
• How to deal with unjustified accusations
• How parents can defuse such situations, handle complaints about their child

Week 10: Self-Regulation

• How is Your Engine Running (self-awareness exercise from the Alert Program)
  
• Relaxation techniques for kids and parents
  

Week 11: Avoiding Physical Fights and Bullying

• Peer rejection plus aggression (by 2nd-3rd grade) has a poor prognosis
• Physical vs relational aggression
• Ways to stay out of a fight
• Parents – decreasing physical fights between your child and others

Week 12: Graduation

• Food and drink
• Diplomas
• Post-treatment assessments
• Where to go from here