This video depicts the differences between healthy and unhealthy relationships. Its target audience is clearly middle school students. It is short, clever and the cartoon characters and content are age appropriate. It addresses the fact that during middle school, peer relations become important and the need to spend time with family starts to diminish. It is important to choose peers who will be upfront, honest, and supportive. It goes into detail as to what goes into a healthy relationship and the importance of give and take. There will be times in which one may disagree with a friend, but how you resolve any disagreements is important. The video is short, informative and the visual component is helpful for visual learners.
Melissa Maynes

Parent Permission Slip

https://www.canva.com/design/DAEY2gzXUc8/ycpCHbjyDT_sXnBRbvyGWQ/view?utm_content=DAEY2gzXUc8&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=viewer

This video discusses the five level of friendships. This relates to the group topic because it is important for middle school students to learn the difference between these forms of friendships. Often times, adolescents have poor boundaries and may share personal information with others too quickly. Understanding the levels of friendship helps them determine who in their lives is in which level. It is a good reminder that certain people are not quite in the best friend or intimate level and may not be the appropriate people to share certain information with. In addition, it is a good lesson in remembering that having an array of friends is perfectly normal and healthy even. Not everyone needs to be a best friend but at the same time, having just acquaintances could make for feelings of not-belonging and disconnect. This video along with a discussion about it could be beneficial for this particular group.
Melissa Maynes

One of the things that we had to consider in pre-planning this group was how big the group would be. When contemplating this we all eventually agreed that the group should be smaller, allowing less distractions and more probability of learning. Numerous classroom conditions influence child-child interactions. The number of students, the physical arrangements, open versus traditional classroom structures, curriculum content, and teaching style are known to be correlated with variations in children's interactions with one another (National Research Council, 1984). This is something that we are really trying to accomplish when it comes to the population and learning environment for this group. Open classroom settings promote friendships which is something that we are trying to strive for in this group. It also encourages more cooperative learning instead of competitive learning, making more positive attitudes towards peers. By making it a smaller, cooperative learning environment, we hope to promote an open classroom with more sharing, helping, and conversation. Social skills training has been used with schoolchildren mainly in an effort to improve the status of isolated and withdrawn children. Numerous interventions have been tried, most based on the hypothesis that such children have difficulties in peer relationships because of their inadequate social skills, e.g communication skills (National Research Council, 1984). This book gives a big idea of what we are trying to accomplish by creating this group and why.
National Research Council (US) Panel to Review the Status of Basic Research on School-Age Children, & COllins, W.A. (Eds.). (1984). Development During Middle Childhood: The Years From Six to Twelve. National Academics Press (US). pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25032422/

Amanda Hillesheim

Introduction

Our group consisted of Shanika Greenleaf, Amanda Hillesheim, Sean Matteo, and Melissa Maynes. We were assigned middle school as our age group. We wanted to create a group that would provide information that would be practical and relevant to this age group. We chose peer relations and social skills and narrowed down our population specifically to seventh grade students. We chose this topic because middle school is a time of great change and transition and peer relations can be complex and difficult because of this. In regards to diversity when planning this group, we discussed the possibility of there being an educational component on understanding different cultures and how their social interactions may differ. Pre-planning activities includes planning the structure and agenda of the group and researching activities and information necessary for the group, a needs assessment, advertising the group to include sending a flyer home to parents, creating a parental consent form, then of course, interviewing students who have a signed parental consent and decide if this group would be a good fit for them.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/106044/chapters/Middle-Schools@-Social,-Emotional,-and-Metacognitive-Growth.aspx This resource was chosen because it shows the nature of development for middle school students and how they are faced with enormous changes and possible adaptations during the middle school years. Furthermore, this shows the developmental levels that can be expected throughout middle school.
Armstrong, T. (n.d.). The Best Schools.
Sean Matteo

Sink, C. A., Edwards, C., & Eppler, C. (2012). School based group counseling. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole. (Chapter 7)

School based group counseling is a very helpful guide. Chapter 7 in particular goes into detail on groups for middle school and junior high students. It discusses the types of groups that are most necessary in a middle school setting. It discusses what is needed out of a group counselor/facilitator for middle school. Humor, a touch of savviness and the ability to model strong listening and sharing skills are essential characteristics of a group leader. This chapter also goes over the limits of confidentiality which is an important facet of group. Although this group focuses on peer relations and social skills, there will likely be some confidential information that is shared during the group or the pregroup screening. Reminding students of the limits of confidentiality is important along with making sure the school counselor abides by these limits as well. This chapter also gives examples of how to advertise one’s group. On page 194, a flyer is shown that could certainly give good ideas on how to get the word out about the group. In addition, in our pregroup planning we mentioned conducting our group during lunch but this chapter specifically mentions that lunch is not enough time to conduct a group. It generally takes 5-10 minutes just for everyone to get situated. If the group is conducted during lunch, that leaves about 15-20 minutes for actual group time. This is something to consider for the group we are creating. On the whole, this chapter is full of vital information for our middle school peer relations/social skills group.
Melissa Maynes

When deciding on what topic we would like our group to be we also considered when middle schoolers were at their most vital point in cognitive development as well. This is where we discussed the seventh grade and how developmentally peer relations were really starting to become important and develop. This means that having the appropriate cognitive skills would be very beneficial in making sure students successfully create positive peer relations. In this document the authors really focus on how positive peer relations are good for social-emotional development. Here they state that all children benefit form the social and emotional support that friends offer, and that they learn important social skills by interacting with other peers. When children experience social stressors, peer conflicts, peer difficulties, rejection, social exclusion and victimization it is important for them to have both the personal and interpersonal skills to help them with these stressors (Pepler & Bierman, 2018). By having a safe environment who struggle with these social-emotional skills it allows intervention in these social-emotional programming to help boost their social-emotional skills to help support individual children who have more intensive social needs and improve their peer relationship and create peer contacts that are more tolerant and supportive of individual differences (Pepler & Bierman, 2018). By creating this group it allows students who may struggle in these aspects have the opportunity to create more positive peer relations and more positive social skills.
Pepler, D., & Bierman, K. (2018). With a Little Help from my Friends-The Importance of Peer Relationships For Social-Emotional Development. The Pennsylvania State University. https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/research/2018/11/with-a-little-help-from-my-friends--the-importance-of-peer-relationships-for-social-emotional-development.html

https://www.familyconsumersciences.com/2015/10/communication-skills-lesson-activities/#google_vignette

Effective communication coincides with excellent social skills. This link has an array of lessons and activities that teach adolescents the importance of effective communication in various aspects of their lives. The activities are fun and interactive and offer a wide variety of methods. Additionally, they will learn the difference between assertive, aggressive, passive, and passive aggressive communication. Which style works best during an altercation? In class? Does passive or passive aggressive communication have a place in any circumstances? How does one identify these forms of communication?
Melissa Maynes

Tyson, L.E, Perusse, R., Whitledge, J., Coy, D.R., Akos, P., & Moore, I.L. (2004). Screening of

        Members: “Everyone is Welcome.” Critical Incidents in Group Counseling (pp.9-14).     

American Counseling Association.

        This article discusses the importance of pregroup planning which includes prescreening, parental consent forms and practicing in one’s scope of practice. School counselors are not supposed to run therapeutic process groups the way a mental health counselor would. Some brief counseling is appropriate but if the group’s focal point is process/mental health based, this is beyond the school counselor’s scope of practice in this particular setting. Prescreening students is necessary so the appropriate needs are met in the group. If a student mentions during a prescreening interview that he/she is suicidal or needs further treatment, then the appropriate measures would need to be made then. Allowing just anyone to join a group could have detrimental circumstances especially if the facilitator is not equipped to handle certain situations. The group we are trying to organize focuses on peer relationships and social skills. Although at times, the narrative in the group may veer towards a deeper direction, students with significant mental health needs may not be an appropriate fit for this particular group.

https://informeddecisionsblog.wordpress.com/2016/11/21/12-ways-to-avoid-misbehavior-in-a-classroom-or-group-setting/ Group members should come together to discuss rules in which students must agree upon. This is an intricate factor of the preplanning process. All agreements must be discussed with students and each student must agree to the rules. The group members should include rules and agreements that are fair, comfortable for all, and ensure they are followed from the first session and throughout.