Social Skills and Trauma Related Resources

I wanted to find some helpful ways to engage with students (especially on the teen level) when they do come down for check ins but there are no immediate concerns. As well as for my students who do have IEP’s, I was looking for other resources that I can implement with the students that are geared towards their goals. So I stumbled upon childtherapytoys.com. They have everything from sand trays and the miniatures, to books and games that can be categorized by age group. You can ‘shop by topic’ where they have a list of different mental health needs. For every mental health category there are different books such as workbooks and interactive activity books. Some of the books (not all) may look a little more outdated but there is a nice variety. One of the games that stood out to me was The Empathy Card Game.  The purpose of the game is to assist teens and children with how to understand someone else's feelings and to read nonverbal cues. This game is perfect for kids who have difficulty with social communication and a great way to build rapport and engage. The cards are separated into 3 categories: emotion cards, value cards and talking without words cards. The value cards will give the student a scenario and they would choose what the best choice would be based on the 4 options listed. The Emotion cards are more of questions pertaining to their emotional response to scenarios; again there are 4 options listed. The talking without words cards deals with more non verbal responses. An example is, “I’m going to make a face like one of the choices below. Guess which one I’m thinking about,” and then there are 4 options listed below such as, “my pet turtle died, I just flunked a spelling test, I just took a sip of spoiled milk, I ate too much for dinner.”

They have some really great books for the younger kids that really stood out to me. The Becoming A Superhero: A Book for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma book, which provides young kids with specific coping skills for dealing with trauma, includes strategies to reduces PTSD symptoms, helpful for prevention and intervention, and is the information is on research based techniques. I would also recommend checking Amazon for potentially cheaper prices.