The Social Skills Resource Center

Background
Achieving academic success is only one of the challenges children face in order to thrive in the school setting. Often overlooked is their ability to interact with others and navigate the social environment. For children and adolescents with developmental challenges, socialization skills are even more challenging and can bring even greater frustration than academic studies.

The Social Skills Resource Center was developed to help individuals significantly enhance their social and emotional capabilities. For over 10 years, we have offered social skills groups and have developed a curriculum with which we have had much success. In our groups, co-led by a Speech-Language Pathologist and a Clinical Social Worker, participants explore the building blocks to age appropriate socialization themes and immediately apply these skills in their interactions during the group. The program also encourages students to use these developing skills in their daily environments.

Our program has grown to include over 15 groups running on a weekly basis in our Fairfield, NJ office. Our staff has grown to include a wide variety of talented professionals who are highly skilled in many different areas of intervention planning and treatment. The foundation of our program has always been our commitment to children and their families.

Our Curriculum
Our curriculum is based upon three core principles developed from our experiences working with children and the most current research in the field. It is these principles that distinguish our program from others:

1. Children need to have good perspective-taking abilities in order to be truly successful in their socialization efforts. Understanding the thoughts and feelings of others, and being able to recognize their intent and point of view is an important aspect of socializing and communicating with others.
2. Emotional relatedness is an area of interpersonal interactions that is necessary for connecting with others; yet very difficult to "teach" through traditional social skills training methods. We are attentive to this area and are continually focused on relationship building as a part of our curriculum.
3. Communicative Competence refers to how we use our language skills to verbally interact with others. Many children in need of social skills training have language skills, yet they are not able to use these skills appropriately during a wide range of social interactions.

Our Clients
Our program supports both children and adolescents, pre-school through college age. We accommodate children with the following diagnoses:

• Autistic Spectrum Disorder
• Asperger's Syndrome
• Attention Deficit Disorder
• Sensory Integration Disorder
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Tourette's Syndrome

Key Features of our Program
The quality of our program is reflected in a number of key features:

• Co-Treatment Intervention Planning - Our program utilizes leaders from two different disciplines: Speech-Language Pathology and Mental Health. Many children who are seen for social skills intervention have co-occurring challenges that need to be identified, examined and provided for within the intervention plan. With professionals in two disciplines, we are able to work at the most appropriate level for each child's need.
• Group Composition - given the size of our group program, we are able to place participants in groups that are appropriate for both chronological age and developmental level.
• Group Size - we are able to keep our groups between four and eight members, allowing for a smaller student/leader ratio, as well as the opportunity for participants to practice skills with a reasonably sized group of peers.
• Schedule - With the exception of holidays, our weekly meetings run from September through June. This extended calendar allows for better group cohesion and allows for friendships to form more naturalistically.
• Curriculum - We have developed a unique curriculum, building upon the work of experts in the field, specifically tailored for children of different ages and abilities. We use many structured activities to teach specific skills utilizing a cognitive behavioral approach, but also encourage spontaneous group interaction and use the group process to highlight appropriate skills in action. Our leaders are well equipped to nurture emotional relatedness and combine it effectively with the more behaviorally oriented nature of social skills training.
• Cooperation with Parents - Our group leaders meet with parents periodically during the school year to continuously reformulate specific goals for their child and to encourage the generalization of skills to other contexts. Additionally, verbal reports are given to parents at the end of each session to keep them apprised of the current focus of the group and encourage them to build upon the group's themes. Written reports are provided twice a year.  A book that highlights the skills worked on in the group is distributed to each participant at the end of the year.

Our Current Staff

• Mark Pesner, Ph.D.
  Licensed Psychologist
  Director, The Social Skills Resource Center
• Aileen Collucci, M.A., CCC
  Speech-Language Pathologist
  Associate Director, The Social Skills Resource Center
• Karen Liberato, L.C.S.W.
  Licensed Clinical Social Worker
  Group Leader
• Mary Burke, M.S.W.
  Clinical Social Worker
  Group Leader
• Janice Rosenmann, L.C.S.W.
  Licensed Clinical Social Worker
  Group Leader
• Celeste Mancinelli, M.A., CCC
  Speech-Language Pathologist
  Group Leader
• Ellen Haggerty, M.A., CCC
  Speech-Language Pathologist
  Group Leader
• Michael Greene, L.S.W.
  Social Worker
  Group Leader

For More Information about the Social Skills Resource Center

• Contact Dr. Pesner at 973-276-9040 extension 1,
  e-mail mpesner@therapeuticoptions.net or

• Aileen Collucci, at 973-276-9040 extension 2,
  e-mail acollucci@therapeuticoptions.net.