What happens in a Social Skills Group?
First Session
The first session of group will be all about introductions and meeting one another. You will play a get to know you game and talk about the shared agreement you have for group including talking about confidentiality. You will also talk with the group about what your goals are and what you want to get out of being there.
Skills
Throughout the group, you will learn concrete skills that will go over topics around friendship building, starting and keeping conversations going, initiating hang outs, conversational rules, handling disagreements, proper use of humor, dating etiquette and more. You will also learn CBT skills to work on social anxiety.
Neurodiversity-Affirming
Most importantly, while learning social skills, we always have an emphasis on being yourself and finding your people - people who will accept the real you and who you have things in common with and who like you and accept you for who you are and vice versa.
Homework
You will be given homework after each session in order to practice the skills you learned as well as to challenge yourself to do some of the scarier things being worked on in the group - like initiating a conversation with someone at school, or asking someone to hang out.
Follow Up
Your group therapist will send a follow up handout after each session to you, your parents, and your therapist in order to keep everyone in the loop about what’s happening in the group. Your group therapist will also schedule one on one calls with you, your parents and your therapist once a month or so so that you can talk with your group therapist about how the group has been going and get feedback too.
Processing Component
Some of our social skills groups also have a processing component where group members explore how their struggles affect them, and also process with one another what it’s like to be there and interact with the other group members. Group members will also get the opportunity to connect and get support from one another and feel less alone.
Want to learn more about our groups?
Follow our instagram account @Teen_Group_Therapy in order to get a snapshot into what else happens in our teen groups! And contact us if you’d like to learn more about enrolling your teen or client into one of our groups.