In the days of the 18th edition of the Taller d'Habilitats Socials, aimed at sixth grade students in Dénia, La Xara and Jesús Pobre, a total of 435 students have participated. The Unitat de Prevenció Comunitària en Conductes Addictives (UPCCA) of the Addiction Prevention Authority, in collaboration with the Associated Center of the UNED of Dénia, convened these sessions that took place between 8 and 16 November.
The objective of this workshop is for students to acquire, develop and improve competencies related to social skills. For this purpose, they were provided with various tools that allowed them to have adequate interaction in different social contexts, as well as tools that facilitated the control of behavior in different situations that may be encountered throughout life.
The people who lead the workshop are the pedagogues and the expert psychologist in social skills Lorena Pérez, Sandra Baeza and Cristina Cano, collaborating professionals of the UNED Dénia.
Through play, visualization, analysis and reflection on real situations, students work on social skills to improve them in their relationships and interactions, both with peers and with other people. They also learned to have a better handling and management of conflict situations. In this workshop, self-esteem, empathy, decision-making, influence and peer pressure, and assertiveness are worked on.
The intervention is carried out at this age because they are in their preadolescence and subject to an important life change, about to start in secondary education. Upon entering the institute, they will encounter new friends, influences, and pressures.
It intervenes with a dynamic and motivating methodology that favors group participation with the use of audiovisual material to promote these participatory dynamics. This course, like the previous one, continues to respect the anti-COVID measures, carrying out the exercises in the classroom of the group itself and without mobility of the chair or physical contact between the students.
At the end of this first part of the workshop, the students wrote anonymously the conflicts that affect them and that will be worked on in the second part of the activity, scheduled between March 1 and 9, 2022.
Likewise, the teachers completed a questionnaire in order to evaluate the incidence of the activity and its practical utility. What they highlighted the most was that social skills are essential to help students in their development.
