Adolescents in residential treatment centers (RTCs) often have a severe mental illness as well as significant deficits in their social competencies. Strong Teens is a social and emotional learning (SEL) curriculum designed to decrease internalizing disorders by promoting emotional resilience and social competence. The curriculum has shown promising effects in educational settings. This study is the second to implement Strong Teens in residential treatment with high-risk adolescents. Using a quasi-experimental wait-list control design, therapists implemented Strong Teens with 36 adolescent girls in an RTC during group therapy. The researchers assessed changes in social and emotional knowledge, internalizing symptoms, and resilience using a split-plot repeated measures ANOVA, paired samples t-tests, and effect sizes. Although results indicated that Strong Teens did not affect the girls’ social and emotional knowledge, the intervention did show evidence of reducing their internalizing symptoms and increasing their resilience. In a social validity survey, most group therapists agreed with the goals and procedures of the curriculum but were less certain regarding the outcomes. We recommend that future studies of this population investigate which SEL topics are most suitable, identify the most favorable lesson times for RTC implementation, and explore student perspectives and experiences with Strong Teens.

This is a reprint of the article first published in 2009 in the same magazine.

This study investigated the effects of school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) on middle school climate and student outcomes. Data consisted of over 300 teacher responses and 10,000 student responses in two middle schools in the Western United States. This study used a quasi-experimental (non-equivalent two-group, pretest-posttest) design. One school implemented a SWPBS intervention over a period of four years, while the other served as a control. The SWPBS intervention included school-wide teaching of social skills, praise notes from teachers to students, posting of school rules, proactive screening for students at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders, and referrals of at-risk students for targeted interventions. The treatment school showed statistically significant improvements in teacher ratings of school climate, while the control school tended to stay the same or worsen. Statistically significant decreases were also evident in students’ tardiness, unexcused absences, and office discipline referrals when compared to the control school. Implications and limitations of this study are addressed.

This article is an updated and abbreviated version of the Young, E., Boye, A., & Nelson, D. A. (2006) article. It was selected for inclusion in "Helping Children at Home and School III: Handouts for families and educators," and a preprinted version was published in their trade magazine, Communiqué.