Confident Kids

 

A school based group program for
children with challenging behaviour

 

 

  

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The Confident Kids Program is a group program for children aged 6 to 14. The Program is targeted at children exhibiting the following types of problem behaviours: those who engage in impulsive, aggressive, or bullying behaviour, those who are withdrawn, anxious or depressed, and/or those who have problematic peer relationships. Confident Kids focuses on developing children's social skills and reducing their problematic behaviour (especially if antisocial).

The program is designed to be run in schools or community agencies. A group of 6 to 10 children meet weekly for 10 consecutive weeks for a 1.5 hr group. Two leaders are required. Professionals with a background in teaching or counselling who participate in a one-day training workshop or have previously trained in the Exploring Together Program are able to run the program at their school or Agency. The time commitment for each leader is 2 hours per week. This includes preparation time, group time, post-group debriefing and planning.

Who is the program for?

Confident Kids has benefits for students, teachers and the community.

Children

Children who participate in Confident Kids are expected to show:

  • a decrease in their aggressive and problematic behaviour
  • an improvement in their ability to concentrate
  • a decrease in anxious-depressed or withdrawn behaviour
  • an improvement in their social skills and self-esteem
  • improved peer relationships

Teachers

Many teachers throughout Australia have been trained to run this Program as part of the multi - group Exploring Together Program. These teachers consistently report the following:
Improved skills in

  • dealing effectively with children with behaviour problems
  • group process work
  • effective management of group behaviour

Furthermore, they report:

  • that skills learnt permeate many aspects of their classroom teaching and management
  • increased confidence in handling children with challenging behaviour
  • generalisation of their new skills to other staff members
  • benefits from working closely with another professional
  • that classes are easier to manage
  • that children are easier to teach

Schools

Benefits for schools include:

  • earlier identification and effective intervention for children at risk of developing behaviour problems
  • reduction in children's 'at risk' behaviour
  • decrease in class disruption
  • decrease in bullying and other aggressive behaviours
  • increase in skills amongst staff
  • a safer and more peaceful environment for everyone

Communities

  • reduce the prevalence of children at risk of developing serious emotional or behavioural problems

What happens in the Confident Kids training workshops?

The Confident Kids training workshop is a one-day workshop that aims to assist professionals to:

  • increase their knowledge of specific personal and social skills these children need to learn
  • learn more effective strategies for assisting children to reduce their problematic behaviour
  • learn how to intervene directly into children's interactions to assist children to learn more effective skills
  • improve their ability to facilitate the generalisation of skills children learn in the group to other settings
  • help children take increasing responsibility for their own behaviour
  • select appropriate working groups of children

Participants are provided with a comprehensive manual detailing how the Confident Kids Program is run, complete with session notes and homework handouts.

Structure and content of the Confident Kids Program

The Confident Kids Program involves six to ten children participating in ten consecutive weeks of group work. The Program also includes options for parent meetings, teacher meetings and post-group family interviews for evaluation and feedback. This group focuses on teaching the children:

  • anger/anxiety management
  • pro-social skills
  • perspective taking
  • conversation skills
  • problem-solving
  • affect recognition
  • assertion skills
  • decision-making
  • social perception

The aim of the group is to reduce children's aggressive and/or withdrawn behaviours whilst improving peer interactions. This is done through group activities such as games, stories and role-play.

 

Training information page
contact us

Box 11, 607 Lygon St Princes Hill Victoria 3054. P 0438879360