Indeed the structured format of SPV’s Social Skills Program* consisting of eight steps is most unique and is essentially the heart of the program. The Society for Prevention of violence (SPV) is committed to make certain that this type of structured teaching is correctly applied. Structured learning was found to assist children and grown-ups to remember, employ and maintain what they learned. As a consequence, structured learning empowers youths and adults to function in a socially acceptable and in a proactive manner, not only in situations that require control of emotions, but also in events that make it necessary to resolve, instantly and peacefully, real-life situations that could otherwise have serious consequences including violent repercussions. The structured teaching and learning activities are based on story material that stimulates real-life’s inappropriate and uncontrolled behaviors and situations. The objective of this teaching is to prevent violence by acquiring and applying appropriate social behaviors and by succeeding in bringing problematic and violent situations to a peaceful conclusion.
SPV’s Social Skills Program consists of two structured SPV Methodologies. One of the two SPV Methodologies deals with behaviors and objectives, while the other one is concerned to resolve peacefully difficult and sometimes violent situations. The two structured SPV Methodologies are best taught in tandem. Lessons from SPV’s Social Skills Methodology** are suggested to be taught first to improve behavior. They should be followed by lessons from SPV’s Violence Prevention Skills Methodology.*** The latter instructs children and adults how to deal with and how to resolve conflicts without using nor experiencing violence.
Both structured SPV Methodologies employ the same eight steps and teach them in a structured format. The title of each lesson portrays the skill to be learned. The objective of teaching these skills is to demonstrate appropriate behaviors and to empower the students to acquire these skills, so that they are able to use them properly and instantly at every occasion that requires appropriate behavior and learned instant reactions. These skills, when correctly employed, can serve as tools to prevent violence by resolving peacefully situations that otherwise might become violent.
The eight steps are:
A teacher or facilitator will present steps 1 and 2 and explain how best to do steps 3 and 4, whenever a new skill is being taught. Step 5, reinforcement, is encouragement and praise from the teacher or facilitator. Step 7 is transfer to real-life situations and is usually a homework activity. Step 8 is a reminder to use a skill at all times and is done by the teacher or facilitator.
SPV’s Social Skills Methodology was the first of the structured programs taught in regular school classes. The first such class was held in 1983 in the Cleveland Public School System. Many programs now on the market are competing with SPV’s Social Skills Program. Some are under a different name, such as character education, life skills, peace education and others. SPV’s Violence Prevention Skills Methodology, I believe, is still the only one of its kind. The teaching of both SPV methodologies together, which is SPV’s Social Skills Program, has been very effective and the books are widely used. The comments, that parents, teachers and students make about the program in regard to the importance of the skill, its wide acceptance, its learning ease, its broad scope and the pleasures it provides while teaching and learning how to role play the skills, are refreshing to read. It is apparent that role playing, reinforcement and practice greatly strengthen the ability of children and adults to recall the most suitable skill at a moment’s notice, so as to enable instant and peaceful responses to inappropriate behaviors and thus to achieve peaceful resolutions of difficult and even violent situations.
Ruth Begun