1. Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention
A new middle school program by Committee for Children
Released June 2008) Focus : 7th and 8th Grade
The new Second Step Middle School Program from Committee for Children represents the culmination of 3 years of intensive development. It is a complete revision of the award winning, research-proven Second Step: A Violence Prevention Program.
While the new program is based on the same core skills Second Step users are already familiar with, it takes the program to a whole new level by including new content on substance abuse prevention and bullying prevention.
The new program will ship in June 2008.

2. Agenda Program overview and goals Research foundations
Program specifics
Levels and lessons
Teaching strategies
Program themes
Contents
During our presentation, we’ll give you a brief overview of the program and its goals and a solid understanding of the research foundations of the program and specifics of the program. We’ll illustrate the core themes taught in the Second Step program with video clips and other program materials to help bring the program to life. 2

3. What is Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention?
All-in-one prevention program for middle school
Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention
School Success
Bullying Prevention
Violence Prevention
Substance Abuse Prevention
The new Second Step Middle School Program followed an exhaustive development process that included a thorough review of research, review by nationally known middle school experts and researchers, and piloting in 12 classroom at 3 schools.
The result is a very exciting new program for middle school students that promotes school success while addressing substance abuse, bullying, and violence prevention. 3

4. What is Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention?
Video Overview
This clip provides you with a brief video overview of Committee for Children’s newest middle school program.
Click on link to view video. Must be in Slide Show view and connected to the Internet to view. 4

5. Development Driven by Client Requests and Market Demands
Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention
We need a bullying program for middle school.
We must address the prevalence of aggression and bullying in middle schools.
We must address substance abuse - it is our prevention priority.
We want one program that focuses on multiple prevention issues.
Program design was driven by client requests and market demands.
Committee for Children had numerous requests for a bullying program for this age group, and there is a clear need to address substance abuse at this age.
A thorough market review indicated that schools and districts don’t have the time and resources to teach multiple prevention programs. In the academic climate of the United States, schools have a hard time doing prevention and social-emotional learning programs at all. They want one program that covers it all.

6. Program goals Increase school success Decrease aggression and violence
Decrease bullying behaviors
Decrease substance abuse
As always with the Second Step program, the focus is on social-emotional competency and developing the cognitive and behavioral skills young people need for their safety and well-being.
However, specific program outcomes have been expanded in this new program. The new goals are to:
Decrease aggression and violence
Decrease bullying behaviors
Decrease substance abuse
Increase school success
This program has been developed very intentionally to increase students’ success at school. Academic improvement is not just a side effect of decreasing the other negative behaviors.
In the Second Step program, school success relates to:
Getting along with peers
Getting along with teachers
Feeling safe, more accepted, and part of a community
Managing aggression and impulsivity in the classroom
More effective communication
These school success factors are all shown to improve academic success.

7. Research foundations Risk and protective factors Bullying
Brain research
Developmental needs of young adolescents
We’ll spend the next several slides talking about the research foundations of the program.
It’s important to note that the Second Step program was developed by Committee for Children, which has a 25-year history of providing research-based, demonstrated effective social-emotional learning programs for children. Their programs are used in schools throughout the world.
This program builds upon that history and was developed based on an exhaustive review of research.

8. Prevention research supports one program targeting multiple issues
Risk and protective factors are at the heart of Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention.
Many of the same factors predict substance abuse, violence, delinquency, and school failure.
The market challenged Committee for Children by asking, “Can’t you just do everything?” The good news is that in the field of prevention science, the wisdom of doing a program that targets multiple behaviors is supported by evidence.
Over recent decades, researchers have successfully identified factors in multiple domains in children’s lives that increase the risk of problems and support healthy development. The big discovery was that kids who have some problems often have several, and similar problems go together. In other words, problematic behaviors have many common risk factors, but they also have common protective factors.
Risk factors increase the likelihood youth will experience problems or engage in problem behavior. Protective factors protect students from the effects of risk and improve their chances for success.
This approach is now the basic model that most experts use in the prevention field. It organizes and summarizes decades of research in the prevention science field. It may seem like a big leap to have a program that targets multiple problems, but in fact the evidence supports it.
Research on risk and protective factors has laid the groundwork for interventions that can simultaneously address multiple problems, reducing the need for a separate program for each concern.
That is the strength of the social-emotional learning approach to problems: social-emotional competency is not just linked to one problem. It provides foundational skills that address a range of problems.
The power of reducing risk and increasing protection to safeguard youth is essential to the design of the new Second Step Middle School Program. 8

9. Risk and protective factors addressed in the Second Step Middle School Program
Risk Factors
Protective Factors
Inappropriate classroom behavior
Favorable attitudes towards violence and/or substance abuse
Friends who engage in violence and/or substance abuse
Early initiation of violence and/or substance abuse
Peer rewards for antisocial behavior
Peer rejection
Impulsiveness
Social skills
School connectedness
Adoption of conventional norms about substance abuse
This slide shows the risk and protective factors addressed in the Second Step program.
These risk factors are consistent for aggression and violence, substance abuse, and lack of success in school.
Inappropriate classroom behavior includes:
Aggression
Impulsivity
Lack of respect/compliance
All of these are addressed in multiple ways throughout the program.
With the protective factors, there is a complex interweaving of social skills, school connectedness, and program outcomes.
Having good social skills protects youth from involvement in substance use, violence, and delinquency. Social skills include social-emotional competence, problem solving, assertiveness, and refusal skills.
Social skills and the ability to get along with classmates decreases:
Inappropriate classroom behavior such as aggression
Peer rejection
At the same time, social skills facilitate positive relationships with peers and school staff, thus increasing school connectedness. School connectedness is shown to protect students from a wide range of problem behaviors. A higher degree of connectedness correlates to lower-level problem behavior.
Reduction of bullying affects a student’s sense of safety, which contributes to school connectedness.
Another aspect of school connectedness is a teacher who is empathetic, consistent, and encourages students’ self- management and allows them to make decisions. Students’ connection to teachers can counterbalance the negative influences of bonding with antisocial peers.
Committee for Children expects that, as they do with other Second Step programs, teachers of this middle school program will experience a shift in attitude and behavior.

10. Bullying research
Bullying escalates during these years, particularly at Grade 6.
Bullying is a form of aggression.
Bullying escalates in sixth grade, especially in a sixth- through eighth-grade school. Students are jostling for social position, realigning their groups and cliques. They are trying to find their place in the social mix, and there is a huge focus on peer acceptance.
There is much discussion among researchers about how bullying fits into the continuum of aggression and violence, and the belief that risk and protective factors for aggression and violence may apply.
A lot of the aggression is in the form of bullying at middle school. As students are trying to make sense of the new social order, bullying is a way of sorting it all out and trying to make sense of it. 10

11. Brain research New understanding of brain development in adolescence:
Logic and reasoning, planning, and problem-solving skills increase.
Self-control may not be completely developed until 10 years after early adolescence.
Evidence of increased impact of substance abuse on adolescent brains
Adolescence is a challenging time full of tremendous brain development. This increases the opportunities for both positive and negative outcomes, making this an especially important time to provide the skills and support youth need.
Students’ abilities to use logic and reasoning, plan ahead, problem solve, and understand the long-term consequences of their actions is gradually increasing during early adolescence.
Recent research on cognitive development shows that competent self-control may not be completely developed until a full decade after early adolescence. This means that early adolescence is an especially important time to scaffold the development of students’ abilities to control and regulate their emotions and develop effective problem-solving and decision-making skills.
In addition, mounting studies show that the impact of substance abuse in the developing brain is much greater than on the adult brain, making this a critical time to curb substance abuse. 11

12. Developmental needs of young adolescents
To interact with peers
To have practical use for learning
To self-reflect
To shift type of activity frequently
To move around
Committee for Children paid careful attention to the developmental needs of young adolescents with this program. In fact, each grade level was designed very specifically to that student’s age.
During adolescence, there is a tremendous amount of development. Intellectually, adolescents are moving from concrete to abstract thinking and developing their ability to self reflect.
Socially, their need for group identity and acceptance by peers can have an overriding effect on other aspects of young adolescent development.
Physically, they are restless and need physical activity. Emotionally, they have mood swings. They want to be independent, but are sensitive to criticism and are self-absorbed.
All of these developments lead to a need for group learning and a high interest in interacting with peers during learning activities. They get meaning when they apply their knowledge and skills to social issues and topics of concern. Middle school students like self reflection and strongly prefer active learning with varied activities over passive learning experiences.
You’ll see all of these needs addressed in the wide variety of teaching strategies employed in the program. 12

13. Program details Levels and lessons Teaching strategies
Scope of program content
Now that you have an understanding of the research foundations of the program, we’ll go into more specifics about the program itself.
We’ll talk about the lessons and teaching strategies, but will focus most of the attention on the program content and the core themes taught in the program.

14. Handling new responsibilities
Stepping Up
Grade 6
15 lessons
Decision making, staying in control
Stepping In
Grade 7
13 lessons
Leadership, goal setting
Stepping Ahead
Grade 8
Levels and Lessons
There is one set of lessons for each grade level. Grade 6 has 15 lessons, and Grades 7 and 8 have 13 lessons each.
As you can see here, each level has an underlying theme that is appropriate to that grade level. At Grade 6, students are handling new responsibilities and transitioning to middle school. At Grade 7, they are increasing their focus on good decision making and staying in control, and at Grade 8, they are focusing on leadership and goal-setting as they prepare for their transition to high school.
Each lesson is 50 minutes in length. They are divided into two parts so they can be taught as one long lesson or two shorter lessons. This gives the freedom to schedule lessons during advisory periods, block classes, or regular class periods. 14

15. Handling new responsibilities
15 lessons
Stepping Up
Grade 6
Decision making, staying in control
13 lessons
Stepping In
Grade 7
Leadership, goal setting
Stepping Ahead
Grade 8
Levels and Lessons
There is one set of lessons for each grade level. Grade 6 has 15 lessons, and Grades 7 and 8 have 13 lessons each.
As you can see here, each level has an underlying theme that is appropriate to that grade level. At Grade 6, students are handling new responsibilities and transitioning to middle school. At Grade 7, they are increasing their focus on good decision making and staying in control, and at Grade 8, they are focusing on leadership and goal-setting as they prepare for their transition to high school.
Each lesson is 50 minutes in length. They are divided into two parts so they can be taught as one long lesson or two shorter lessons. This gives the freedom to schedule lessons during advisory periods, block classes, or regular class periods. 15 15

16. Handling new responsibilities
15 lessons
Stepping Up
Grade 6
Decision making, staying in control
13 lessons
Stepping In
Grade 7
Leadership, goal setting
Stepping Ahead
Grade 8
Levels and Lessons
There is one set of lessons for each grade level. Grade 6 has 15 lessons, and Grades 7 and 8 have 13 lessons each.
As you can see here, each level has an underlying theme that is appropriate to that grade level. At Grade 6, students are handling new responsibilities and transitioning to middle school. At Grade 7, they are increasing their focus on good decision making and staying in control, and at Grade 8, they are focusing on leadership and goal-setting as they prepare for their transition to high school.
Each lesson is 50 minutes in length. They are divided into two parts so they can be taught as one long lesson or two shorter lessons. This gives the freedom to schedule lessons during advisory periods, block classes, or regular class periods. 16 16

17. Levels and Lessons Each complete lesson requires 50 minutes to teach.
Handling new responsibilities
15 lessons
Stepping Up
Grade 6
Decision making, staying in control
13 lessons
Stepping In
Grade 7
Leadership, goal setting
Stepping Ahead
Grade 8
Levels and Lessons
Each complete lesson requires 50 minutes to teach.
Each lesson is divided into two parts that can be taught separately.
There is one set of lessons for each grade level. Grade 6 has 15 lessons, and Grades 7 and 8 have 13 lessons each.
As you can see here, each level has an underlying theme that is appropriate to that grade level. At Grade 6, students are handling new responsibilities and transitioning to middle school. At Grade 7, they are increasing their focus on good decision making and staying in control, and at Grade 8, they are focusing on leadership and goal-setting as they prepare for their transition to high school.
Each lesson is 50 minutes in length. They are divided into two parts so they can be taught as one long lesson or two shorter lessons. This gives the freedom to schedule lessons during advisory periods, block classes, or regular class periods. 17 17

18. Teaching strategies
Use of DVD with rich multi-media content to accompany each lesson
Carefully constructed approach to partner and group work:
Class discussion and activities
Partner or group exchanges
Individual, partner, or group activities
Partner or group skill practices
Individual reflection
Frequent review of core skills and concepts
The Second Step program employs a wide variety of teaching strategies that were chosen specifically for their appropriateness to the developmental needs of middle school students.
Each lesson provides a great deal of variety, interaction, movement, meaning, and self-reflection. Students are actively involved throughout the whole lesson. Activities include class discussion, small-group work, partner activities, skill practices, games, challenge activities, and videos.
Group work is critical in this program. Not only is it developmentally appropriate, it is best practice and essential to any high-quality prevention program. The program employs a variety of ways for students to work with others.
Partner or group exchanges are one or two minutes of simultaneous interaction so that all are engaged in the topic at once.
Partner or group activities are longer and more involved, lasting three to seven minutes. These include games, challenges, and handout work.
In all cases, students are called on at random after working with others to share their point of view. This ensures that all students are actively engaged in the lesson.
Skill practices give students the opportunity to work with the skills they learn in the lessons. Videos demonstrate skill practices so kids know exactly what to do. 18

19. Sample video: Skill practice demonstration
Sample video: Skill practice demonstration
Grade 8, Lesson 3: “Handling a Grievance”
This is an example of a skill practice video that would be shown to the students before they do their own skill practice. This helps them to understand better what they should do.
This is from the Lesson 3 in Grade 8 about Handling a Grievance.
Click on link to view video. Must be in Slide Show view and connected to the Internet to view. 19

20. Dynamic Lesson Companion DVD
Interviews with teens
Video vignettes
Video demonstrations of skill practice
Audio segments
Screens to guide activities and discussions
Cartoons
Central to each lesson is an engaging and dynamic lesson DVD. Videos include interviews with real students, vignettes illustrating concepts, and demonstrations of skill practice. The DVD also includes cartoons, audio segments, and screens to guide discussions and activities. 20

21. Increasing student exposure to lesson content
Additional practice activity
Reflective writing assessment
Homework
Academic integration activities
Journal pages
The Second Step Middle School Program was developed with a variety of activities that allow you to extend the learning beyond the lesson itself. There is enough depth in the program that you could do a Second Step activity almost every day.
Additional practice activities are short activities that provide further opportunity to practice the specific skills introduced and explored in each lesson.
The reflective writing assessment is a formative assessment that allows students and teachers to see whether students are understanding the content and connecting it to their lives.
Each lesson includes an optional homework assignment. All are designed to be done at home with a parent or other involved adult.
Each lesson also includes ideas for integrating Second Step concepts and skills into three subject areas: language arts or social studies, health or science, and media and technology.
Journal pages are provided for each lesson so students can journal about topics specific to that lesson and express their own opinion and learning about the subject. 21

22. Five Program Themes The program includes the following five themes:
Empathy and communication (all grades)
Bullying prevention (all grades)
Emotion management (all grades)
Coping with stress (Grades 7 and 8)
Problem solving (all grades)
Decision making (Grade 7)
Goal-setting (Grade 8)
Substance abuse prevention (all grades)
Each of the grade levels includes the following themes:
Empathy and communication
Bullying prevention
Emotion management
Problem solving
Substance abuse prevention
As students move to Grades 7 and 8, some of these themes are developed further and more specifically to the developmental needs and challenges of those grades. For example, students learn how to cope with stress in both seventh and eighth grades. Problem-solving is extended to include decision making in Grade 7 and goal-setting in Grade 8.
Each grade level starts with empathy and communication skills, because these skills are foundational to the rest of the program and are essential for working with others. Bullying is addressed early in the program. Substance abuse prevention is last, as it incorporates all the skills students are learning throughout the program. 22

23. Empathy and Communication Empathy skills
Empathy—the ability to identify, understand, and respond thoughtfully to the feelings and perspectives of others.
Perspective taking
Checking assumptions
Students are taught that empathy is the ability to identify, understand, and respond thoughtfully to the feelings and perspectives of others. Students learn how to take someone else’s perspective in order to understand their feelings better. They are also taught to check their assumptions and how assumptions influence their perception. 23

24. Empathy and Communication Communication skills
Active listening
Considering others’ perspectives
Communicating assertively
Giving constructive feedback
Disagreeing respectfully
Negotiating and compromising
Handling a grievance
These are the core communication skills taught in the Second Step program. The first four skills are taught and practiced at all grades. Disagreeing respectfully, a foundational skill for working with others, is taught in Grades 6 and 7. Negotiating and compromising is taught in Grades 7 and 8. Handling a grievance is taught in Grade 8. 24

25. Empathy and Communication Working in groups
Active listening (all grades)
Respecting others’ ideas (all grades)
Including everyone (Grades 7 and 8)
Being open-minded (Grade 8)
Another important facet of empathy and communication skills is learning to work in groups. Not only do students learn the skills listed here, but group work provides a very natural setting for practicing empathy and communication skills, plus other program skills such as emotion management. 25

26. Bullying prevention Recognizing bullying (all grades)
Bystander responses (all grades)
Grade 7:
Sexual harassment
Cyberbullying
Grade 8:
Labels, stereotypes and prejudice
Bullying in friendships
Bullying in dating relationships
Bullying prevention is taught at all levels. Students are taught to recognize bullying and what appropriate bystander responses are. As you can see in the poster here, students learn the powerful role a bystander plays. They are taught not to take part in bullying, to offer support, to be an ally to someone who is bullied, and how to take action against bullying.
Sexual harassment and cyber bullying are addressed in Grade 7. Stereotypes and prejudice, bullying in friendships, and bullying in dating relationships are addressed in Grade 8. 26

27. Sample video: Bullying prevention
Grade 7, Lesson 5: Real Voices
This video segment from Grade 7 is an example of the “Real Voices” segments students will see throughout the program. These are real kids sharing their real experiences. In this case, you’ll see a group discussion about bullying experiences and how kids can step in and help. These are not actors, and they weren’t coached in their responses. The goal of these videos is for students to see that they face very real issues, and that they are not alone in facing them. Students in the pilot program found these to be very powerful elements of the lessons.
Click on link to view video. Must be in Slide Show view and connected to the Internet to view. 27

28. Emotion management Staying in control
Steps for staying in control (All grades)
Focus on anger and checking assumptions (Grade 7)
De-escalating tense situations (Grade 8)
The new Second Step Middle School Program goes beyond the anger management lessons in the previous version to address emotion management. Students at all levels are taught the skills they need to stay in control.
In seventh grade, this is expanded to focus on anger and checking assumptions. In eighth grade, students are taught how to de-escalate tense situations.
Students are taught how to stay in control using the skills in the poster. First they are taught to recognize their physical and mental signs. Then they learn how to pause and think twice. Both of these steps are designed to activate and then use the thinking part of their brain. Students are taught different strategies for calming down, in particular positive self-talk and deep breathing. Just as important, they are then taught to reflect on their experience--what worked and didn’t--so they can learn for next time. 28

29. Emotion Management Coping with stress
The number and intensity of stressors increases in middle school.
Students who cannot cope with stress are at risk for academic, emotional, and behavioral problems.
Effective coping involves adopting a positive attitude and taking positive action.
Taught in Grades 7 and 8.
In Grades 7 and 8, emotion management is expanded to teach students more about coping with stress.
Stressors typically increase for middle school students. Students who cannot cope effectively with stress, however, have difficulty focusing and working in school and are at risk for emotional and behavioral problems. Stress can have a cumulative effect. When students become overwhelmed by stress, their ability to cope deteriorates, rendering them even less effective at handling further challenges.
Students are taught how to use positive self-talk to help them deal more effectively with stress. Positive self-talk is a strategy that is used throughout the program and is foundational to creating a positive attitude toward stressful situations. Students are taught to recognize and change their negative self-talk to positive self-talk. They are also taught to see a stressful situation as a challenge or a problem to be solved. Core skills taught in other lessons are also important for coping:
Using calming-down strategies
Getting support
Using the Action Steps 29

30. Sample video: Emotion management and coping
Grade 8, Lesson 8: “Emotion Management”
This seventh-grade video segment takes students on a surfing ride through the brain, teaching them about their brain, body, and emotions.
Click on link to view video. Must be in Slide Show view and connected to the Internet to view. 30

31. Problem solving, decision making, and goal-setting
Using the Action Steps for:
Problem solving (all grades)
Decision making (Grade 7)
Goal-setting (Grade 8)
At all grades, students are taught the Action Steps and how to use them in problem solving. These Action Steps are fundamentally the same problem-solving steps taught in the Second Step program at the elementary level, but they use more sophisticated language to appeal to middle school students.
As students develop, they are taught how to use the Action Steps in more complex situations. In seventh grade, they use them for decision making, and in eighth grade, they are used for goal-setting.
Students follow the model illustrated on the poster. First they are taught how to analyze a situation, and then how to brainstorm options to address the situation. They then consider each option and ask four questions to determine if the option is appropriate. At this level, they are asking if it is ethical, which takes it beyond the elementary level where they ask if it is fair. Students have to really think about what is the right thing to do.
After considering each option, they decide on the best option and then do it. In order to “do” the option they decided on, they have to make a plan for implementing their decision. They then learn how to evaluate if it worked. And if not, they figure out another way by starting at the brainstorming step. 31

32. Substance abuse prevention Tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, and inhalants
Health, personal, and social consequences of using alcohol and other drugs
Hope for the future
Making good decisions about friends
Perceptions of peer use
Resistance skills
Making a commitment
Substance abuse lessons reflect what is known about effective elements of substance abuse prevention programs All the elements shown here appear in the lessons. It is important, however, to remember that as articulated in the risk and protective factor framework, ALL the skills taught in the Second Step program protect students from substance abuse.
Students learn the facts about personal, health, and social consequences of substance abuse. This is a particular focus at Grade 6. Students at all levels talk about what they want in the future that how their hopes and plans can be negatively affected by using alcohol and other drugs. Students in Grade 8 identify their own goals and learn that they may not reach them if they start using alcohol or other drugs.
Students also learn about the true substance abuse norms in their school and across the nation and that their perception (that most middle school students use substances) is not the reality. Surveys show that most middle school students do not use substances.
In Grade 7, students focus on positive decision making and how to choose friends who support their decision not to use. Finally, in all grades, they end the substance abuse lessons by making a commitment not to use. 32

33. Applying lesson content to academics
Using Lesson Content Every Day section
Self-regulated learning
Academic integration activities
Language arts and social studies
Health/science
Media literacy
Reflective writing assessment
Alignment with numerous academic and life skills content standards
Teaching the Second Step program supports the academic work we are focusing on. The program has been intentionally designed to provide links to academic content.
The “Using Lesson Content Every Day” section of each lesson provides suggestions for ways teachers can incorporate program skills and concepts into daily classroom activities. Some suggestions focus specifically on the application of skills to academic tasks and challenges.
Self-regulated learning is the ability of students to control their thoughts, feelings, and actions around learning, and to self-direct their learning in an intentional way. There is growing evidence that the process of self-regulated learning happens in three successive and cyclical phases: forethought, performance, and self-reflection. The skills taught in this program can be used to support self-regulated learning.
Each lesson has activity outlines that integrate lesson concepts and skills with academics for language arts and social studies, health and science, and media literacy.
The reflective writing assessment provides an opportunity for students to use their writing skills while integrating what they’ve learned with the reality of their own lives.
Lesson content and learning strategies align with language arts, media literacy, health, science, math, physical education, civics, and life skills standards. Committee for Children has a brochure that shows specifically how lessons align with these national standards.

34. Sample video: Substance abuse prevention
Grade 6, Lesson 12: “Facts About Addiction”
This sixth-grade video segment talks about addiction, interspersing “Real Voices” videos to reinforce the message.
Click on link to view video. Must be in Slide Show view and connected to the Internet to view. 34

35. Click here to review the 6th Grade Sample Lesson:
Empathy and Communication: Being Assertive

36. Click here to review the 7th Grade Sample Lesson: Lesson 11
Substance Abuse Prevention: Myths and Facts 36

37. Click here to review the 8th Grade Sample Lesson: Lesson 5
Bullying Prevention: Bullying in Friendships 37

38. Family Guide Resource

39. Program components Teacher’s Guide Lessons Lesson Companion DVD
Released June 2008
Teacher’s Guide
Lessons
Lesson Companion DVD
Teaching the Program DVD
Resources CD-ROM
Posters
Supplemental materials
Access to Second Step Middle School Web pages
Lifetime program support
The new Second Step Middle School Program will be available in June 2008.
Each kit comes complete with everything a teacher needs to teach the program successfully.
Lessons are fully scripted to help make it easier to teach difficult and important material. The Resources CD provides many of the materials in electronic format, making it easier to print and duplicate for each lesson. It also includes one file with a comprehensive workbook with all handouts that can be printed at the beginning of the year for use throughout the program, saving time from printing materials for each lesson.
Three posters are included for Grade 6 and four posters for Grades 7 and 8.
In addition, there are a variety of supplemental materials we’ve discussed that include ideas for extending the lessons into other academic areas, suggestions for applying the skills taught in other school and life, Family Letters, and more.
All Committee for Children programs come with free support for the life of the program. Specialists are available to support you from generating buy-in through evaluating the program. 39

40. Program Implementation Guide
Comprehensive guidance to implementing the Second Step program schoolwide
Program Implementation Guide includes:
Program Implementation Guide
All-Staff Overview DVD
Parent and Caregiver Overview DVD
Access to additional resources on Second Step Middle School Web site
The Second Step Program Implementation Guide provides all the information you need to implement the program on a schoolwide basis. It includes information about how to include staff that isn’t teaching the program, involve parents and caregivers, and create a schoolwide culture of respect.
In addition to the printed materials, you get access to a variety of resources on special client-only Web pages. You also get a Staff Overview DVD that has six short video segments, including a program overview and an overview of each of the core theme areas. These can be shown individually or all together in a staff meeting.
The Parent and Caregiver Overview provides a short overview of the program and areas of interest to parents. It could be used at a curriculum night, and open house, or in one-on-one meetings. It provides tips for how to support the skills at home. 40

41. Client support services
Free support for the life of the program.
Get help with:
Securing sponsorship and buy-in
Planning implementation
Exploring funding opportunities
Training staff
Involving families
Reinforcing skills
Evaluating your success
Teaching tips
Committee for Children provides free support for the life of the program. They are committed to helping you every step of the way. A client support specialist will answer questions, help work through a problem, or provide strategies as you launch or evaluate the program.
Committee for Children’s client support services representatives are experienced staff members who are devoted to assisting us at all levels, from securing buy-in to finding funding to training staff and evaluating our program success. Many are former teachers and administrators who have firsthand knowledge about how to implement programs and make the most of lessons. 41