GREENFIELD — They each go to a spot on the carpet, crisscrossing their legs, forming a circle on the floor.
Today, they’re going to talk about their feelings, teacher Dawn Joslin told the students.
Not what they’re feeling, but how to recognize others’ feelings; how to read someone’s facial expressions and body language, and how best to react to it.
It’s a lesson in social skills — important traits for socializing that aren’t often taught in a classroom — that kids with special needs might not naturally develop as quickly as some of their peers.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryA new program by Families United for Support and Encouragement, or FUSE, aims to bridge that divide.
The Building our Social Skills program is wrapping up its first of two 12-week sessions. Its aim is to help kids better understand and interact with those around them.
So far, it’s been a great success, organizers say. Classroom teachers and parents alike have reported seeing positive change in the behaviors of those kids enrolled in the BOSS program. And the program’s instructors say they’re eager to build on that success as the program enters its next installment early next year.
FUSE — a support organization for families raising children with disabilities — received a Big Impact grant from Hancock County Community Foundation in 2017 to make the BOSS program a reality at schools. The grant, offered in celebration of the foundation’s 25th anniversary, was awarded to a project that was deemed to have a long-lasting, positive impact on the community.
Thirty-three Hancock County families signed up to be part of the first installment of the programs, which began in September, said FUSE executive director Denise Arland.
Groups of about five kids meet once a week with an instructor at each of the six host schools across the county for a one-hour after-school lesson.
The classes are purposefully kept small so that kids get a lot of one-on-one time with the instructor.
Through activities and discussions, they cover topics like good communication, good problem-solving and finding self-esteem, Arland said.
This week in Joslin’s class at Maxwell Intermediate School, her four students were learning about feelings.
They settled onto the floor and passed around a little teal-colored pail with folded up bits of paper in it. They took turns reaching into the pail and pulling out a feeling — happiness, sadness, anger, excitement and anxiety, to name a few — and making a face that depicted that feeling.
Later, they pulled scenarios out of the pail and made an expression for what they might feel if that scenario happened to them. Then, the discussed what they might do if they noticed someone who seemed eager, frustrated or disappointed.
The activity taught the students how to properly express themselves and to recognize different emotions in their friends. Instructors — many of them are special education teachers in county schools — keep record of students’ progress in the various lessons, Arland said. They give students a rating on the objectives each day’s lesson aims to meet. As the weeks continue, those objectives build on one another, and the instructors are able to see the progress, she said.
Joslin said she’s seen those changes in her students firsthand, and she knows her colleagues — the kids’ everyday classroom teachers — have noticed it, too.
These behavioral skills are as important for a child’s success as their lessons in science, language arts and mathematics. But it’s hard to find the opportunity to teach such lessons during a school day, Joslin said.
Kids with special needs can be taught those social skills; they just might take a bit longer than their peers to truly understand them, she said. Lessons, especially if they are one on one as the BOSS program allows, can go a long way in giving students these much-needed traits.
The BOSS program is offered at Eastern Hancock Elementary, Mt. Comfort Elementary, New Palestine Elementary, Sugar Creek Elementary, Greenfield Intermediate School and Maxwell Intermediate School.
They’ll take a break for the winter months and return again for additional lessons in February.
Arland is hopes to expand the program next year. The grant from the community foundation would allow for the addition more sites if there is enough interest, she said.