SUCCESS OF ONLINE COUNSELING INTERVENTION FOR AT-RISK STUDENTS

The primary goal of schools is to educate students, however, consensus exists that schools can only be effective learning environments if strategies are implemented that build and maintain appropriate social behavior. The purpose of this pilot study was to create an easily accessible online manualized intervention to fill the void of counseling interventions specifically designed to assist at-risk students and to investigate its’ implementation. The manualized social skills counseling intervention was implemented for 2 years with at-risk elementary school students, and sought to create and maintain appropriate student relating and problem solving, and to improve academic performance. Participants in the study were students who had not responded sufficiently to a school-wide social skills, anti-bullying program and required more intensive support and intervention as they continued to exhibit deficits in social problem solving, and age appropriate peer relationships, accompanied by below grade academic achievement. A comparable group of students, in a demographically similar district school, awaiting intervention was followed as a comparison. The social skills lessons were implemented in a club like format for small groups of students. An adult leader ran weekly groups using the manualized social skills counseling format. Each skill was defined and students participated in an interactive activity to practice the skill followed by processing questions for discussion. The format allowed for learning, review, practice, understanding and reinforcement. The effectiveness of the intervention was determined using measures of behavior, grades, standardized tests, and need for special services collected pre and post intervention for individual students, the intervention group and a comparison group. Results suggest substantial positive intervention outcomes across multiple variables for individual students and between groups. The study concluded that a research based social skills intervention does significantly teach, increase, & maintain prosocial behavior, reduce disruptive behaviors and improve academic performance when consistently implemented in an effective format. Implications of this field based study are considered in terms of applied school practice and global resource accessibility.