From October 1st to November 5th 2009, Nikki Ali and Raminder Kaur, from Laurel Behaviour Support Services, facilitated a Social Skills Group. The group consisted of five boys, aged 8-16 years.

The group focused on basic conversational skills, non-verbal cues during social interaction, conversation topics, behaviours that one can and cannot control while interacting with others and supports to help make social settings more comfortable.

The sessions consisted of some “work times”, which involved brainstorming and writing, mixed in with some “game times”, which involved acting out social situations, playing together and just hanging out. The boys portrayed themselves very well during role-playing sessions. They constructed wooden models and were great at helping each other out with difficult parts.

We had a Halloween themed day where everyone dressed up and did crafts. The kids organized a costume parade, which you can see was a lot of fun! During the last session all of the participants worked independently to create a booklet that outlined what they thought their peer’s likes, dislikes and strengths were.

Overall, all the boys enjoyed the group and showed interest to attend in the future. It was a great experience and we hope to run the next group alongside a parent group in the New Year.

Submitted by Nikki Ali and Raminder Kaur, from Laurel Behaviour Support Services.