The Society for Prevention of Violence (SPV) started at John Carroll University in 1972 under the name of The Begun Institute for Studies of Violence and Aggression. A voluminous amount of information was gathered, studied, and analyzed during the ensuing ten years. In 1983, the Beguns, Dr. Semi J. and Ruth W., founded SPV as a not-for-profit corporation and made The Begun Institute a part of it. Under the leadership of the Beguns, workshops and training sessions were held to instruct teachers, parents, students, and others in the use of relevant social skills and to explain how to employ these skills to resolve difficult and violent situations peacefully. In addition, a comprehensive social skills methodology for grades PreK to 12 was developed, published, and taught.
The social skills methodology is an important educational tool. It teaches skills that enable youngsters and adults to improve behavior by being proactive. Classroom teachers across the country are utilizing SPV's metholology throughout the entire United States from Hawaii to Maine and from Florida to Alaska. The books are used in a number of foreign countries; including Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, and South Korea.
SPV's social skills program is unique. The skills and activities to select and adopt are all expressed in suggestions and positive terms. In other words, students are encouraged, not forced, to use and practice the proper skills to choose sociable behaviors. The program consists of four different books, each covering grades PreK to K, 1 to 3, 4 to 6, and 7 to 12. The text is organized in a logical and systematic format that is required for "Structured Learning," as is shown in the figure below.
In addition to the Social Skills methodology, the SPV developed a Violence Prevention Skills methodology which supplements the Social Skills one. It consists of two books, one for elementary children and the other for secondary students. The lessons deal with real-life situations such as family violence, sibling rivalry, relationships, stress, alcohol and chemical substance abuse, danger, kidnapping, suicide, crime, and others. The two methodologies, preferably taught in tandum, are SPV's Social Skills Program.
The publishers, first Simon & Schuster since 1995, then Pearson, and now John Wiley & Sons have sold by the end of 2004 close to 225,000 books. Not counted are numerous books that were sold before 1995 in a more primitive form, as well as books that were and are employed by SPV staff to train attendees in workshops and to educate staff and children in schools. Considering the numbers of books sold, SPV estimates that its curricula has reached the attention of many more than 200,000 teachers, and that it has been used to teach substantially more than one million children.
From its inception, SPV has been involved with social skills training in schools. In 1983, Wade Park Elementary, a Cleveland, Ohio Public School, was the first school to use SPV's Social Skills lessons, the first of their kind, as regular course material in its classrooms. This project was supported by the then superintendent of the Cleveland Public School District who wanted to instill in his teachers the commitment to prevent violence in his schools and to motivate the children to behave appropriately and to resolve their conflicts peacefully. Every year since then, SPV has trained school staff in urban, suburban, and rural school systems, numbering in the many hundreds, in the use of social and violence prevention skills and taught the children in those schools how to implement those skills.
The SPV staff, approximately a year or two ago, suggested to school staff to train high school students to give social skills lessons to students in elementary and middle grades. This teaching, that is intended to be supplementary to the instructions given by professionals, turns out be a good experience for both groups of students. SPV's staff is fully aware that high school students, even after best instructions, are not full-fledged teachers. Therefore, SPV staff suggests that high school students simultaneously receive those lessons from exceptional well-experienced teachers. Specifically, from instructors who are highly committed to the goals that the lessons aim to accomplish. The objectives are to learn how to be effective in preventing violence and to prepare children of all ages how to be proactive and to react instantly and appropriately to real-life situations that otherwise could end up in violent confrontations.
SPV provides many different workshops with the assistance of the Kent State and Ashland Universities for graduate and undergraduate students, teachers, parents, and others who are interested in violence prevention methods and in children-related behavior problems. Currently SPV offers nineteen workshops on different topics. "Teaching Social Skills in the Classroom" is one of the core workshops. All workshops are taught by qualified consultants, most of whom have a master's degree. The number of workshops given has increased from an average of 35 a year with about 500 participants in 1998, to 50 a year with over 1,000 attendees in the year 2003. All workshops revolve around SPV's mission. Many topics are covered in the workshops, such as: Gangs, Guns, Drugs, and Violence; Violence Prevention Skills; Violence Prevention in the Sports Arena; Managing the Classroom for Success; Family Dynamics, and more. SPV's staff believes that SPV's newest workshop, entitled "Bully-Free Schools," is especially important because it was found that bullies have a high probability of becoming criminals in later life, and that victims of bullying frequently suffer depression and other traumatic after-affects for years.
SPV publishes a Newsletter twice a year. In this publication, articles appear that are mostly related to SPV's mission, a few have a different focus and most relate to children. The Newsletter also describes and lists SPV's workshops, SPV's books, and most importantly, the SPV's mission.
Every year, SPV receives several requests for in-services in social skills training. Such training, with the help of the SPV books, instructs the staff of an organization and also parents, to teach children how to prevent violence and how to resolve conflict situations in an amicable manner. Organizations that have received SPV's in-services are: the Harvard Community Service Center, the Family Transitional Housing, the Juvenile Court School and Probation Services, the Community United Head Start Centers, and others.
Teaching social skills to Head Start children is especially important to SPV because SPV staff strongly believes that the earlier a child is taught to use social skills, the most successful he or she will be in school and later in life. As far back as in 1992, SPV staff trained Head Start teachers how to implement SPV's Social Skills program and showed them how to best interest their young charges in using these skills. It is gratifying to listen to the wonderful role-plays that these young children invent and to experience how easy it is for young children to learn appropriate behaviors.
In 1992, SPV created an after-school program, at no cost to the participants in the neighborhood of the Tremont Elementary School, located on the near west side of the City of Cleveland. SPV staff taught crafts, music, and sports, in addition to Social Skills. Program. The SPV staff also tutored homework. The parents were enthusiastic to send their children, and the children loved to participate. Inadequate funding forced SPV to discontinue this school project after a few years. SPV believes that after-school programs could play an important part in fulfilling its mission if funding could be found.
The Mission Statement of the SPV has remained the same over the years. It was conceived in 1983 and its message is as appropriate today as it was then. It reads as follows:
The Society for Prevention of Violence is dedicated to reducing the prevalence of violent acts and asocial behaviors in children and adults through education. It accomplishes this mission by teaching children and adults the use of the skills necessary to build their character, helping them acquire a strong value system, motivating them to develop their communication skills, and to realize growth in interpersonal relationships. The Mission includes integration of social and academic skills to encourage those who use them to reach their full potential and contribute to our nation's society by being able to make decisions and solve problems through effective and appropriate means.