Peacock Collegiate is holding PEERS Curriculum – Social Skills Training for Adolescents for sixteen weeks starting February 5th. 

The sessions are for Prairie South School Division students referred by their teachers, and they seek to give students an opportunity to develop and practice their social skills.  

“PEERS is a social skills intervention program for teens in middle and high school who are interested in making and keeping friends, maintaining friendships, handling conflict and rejection,” said Melissa Romanow, student support consultant with Prairie South School Division. 

Some topics covered include how to handle arguments, how to choose friends, ways to deal with cyber bullying, and ways to start and join conversations.  

Romanow said that the goal of the program is for students to find a real-world application for what they learn. “We hope that teens take away the skills that they need to make new friendships and to maintain their existing friendships, to get to know new people [and] experience new situations.” 

She said there is a roleplay component that gives students the opportunity to practice those skills during the sessions. 

Previous iterations of the program have been positive for teens. “Usually, it’s an opportunity for the teens to meet new people, because sometimes we have an online group where there’s multiple schools. They get to meet people online that way.” 

The upcoming sessions will include twelve students from Peacock Collegiate, Central Collegiate, and Riverview Collegiate.