Second Step
Category: Social/Emotional/Behavioural
Grade Level: Preschool to Grade 8
1. What is the purpose of the Second Step
program?
The Second Step program is designed to
teach social and emotional skills for violence
prevention through the development of
empathy, impulse control, and anger
management skills. The curriculum is aimed
at reducing the development of social,
emotional, and behavioural problems and
supporting the development of core abilities
such as perspective-taking and identifying
feelings. The ultimate goal of the program is
to reduce the occurrence of aggressive
behaviours, and increase the occurrence of
prosocial behaviours.
2. With whom can it be used?
Second Step is a universal program,
implemented on a school-wide basis. It does
not target children who are already exhibiting
aggressive or antisocial behaviours. It is used
with all the children in a given school, to
remediate skill development in those
experiencing problems and prevent the
development of problems in other children.
The program is very language-based and may
be difficult to implement in classes with large
proportions of children with severe languagerelated disabilities or children with little
English familiarity. A Spanish ESL
supplement is available.
3. What teaching procedures should be
used with the Second Step program?
The Second Step curriculum is described in
grade-based kits. Lesson guidelines and/or
scripts, as well as overheads, videos, lesson
cards and other required materials are
provided in the kits.
Each lesson card includes the lesson’s
objectives, suggested activities, and ideas for
modelling and reinforcing the skills taught
throughout the week. The lesson cards also
include integration activities to tie the lessons
into the academic curriculum, in subjects
such as health, science, math, social studies
and language arts.
A key component of the program is
generalization. Teachers must ensure that
they are modelling problem-solving, anger
management, and impulse control skills at all
times. They are also encouraged to prompt
(e.g., “Remember those problem-solving
steps we talked about?”), coach (“What do
you think you could say to Mary about that?”)
and reinforce (e.g., “How did it make you feel
when she said you did a good job?”) the
program lessons when dealing with any
situation requiring the use of negotiation or
understanding.
The program revolves around 30-45 minute
lessons one to three times a week. Activities
include puppet shows, videos, discussion,
activity sheets and role plays. The timing of
sessions and the activities used vary with the
class’s grade.
In the program, children work on empathy,
impulse control, anger management and
problem-solving skills. The children learn to
recognize and understand feelings, make
positive and effective choices, and keep anger
from escalating into violence.
Before beginning the program, at least one
person from the school, usually the principal
participates in a three-day Second Step
training session. This person is then
responsible for facilitating a one-day training
session for all the school’s staff (teachers,
education support staff, administration
support staff and others) to familiarize them
with the program.
Once the staff understands the program,
families should be invited to become
involved. Second Step provides a video for
parents, and family guides to extend the
program into the home are available for
parents of children in preschool to grade 5.
4. In what type of settings should the
Second Step program be used?
Second Step was designed to be implemented
on a school-wide basis. It is appropriate for
most areas, but may not be as useful in
schools with large numbers of ESL children.
The program can also be used in community
agencies, juvenile detention centres and other
youth program settings. Family participation
in the program is helpful and family guides
for children in preschool through grade 5 can
be purchased to help parents extend the
program to their home. Using the program at
home and at school maximizes its benefits as
it reinforces the lessons and helps children
generalize the skills they’re learning to all
areas of their lives.
5. To what extent has research shown the
Second Step program to be useful?
The Second Step program is built on
empirical findings, and there is much support
for it as well. Research has found that
aggression decreases among students in a
Second Step program over the course of a
school year, whereas it increases in
classrooms not using the program. Prosocial
and neutral behaviours also increase among
students in a Second Step program.
The program underwent a great deal of selfevaluation over the course of its formation.
These evaluations found that children who
participated in the program improved their
perspective-taking and social problemsolving abilities. Studies have also found that
the program changes children’s attitudes
about aggression and may reduce anxiety and
depression.
References
1. Committee for Children (1995). A
family guide to Second Step. Seattle,
WA: Author.
2. Committee for Children. (1992a).
Second Step: A violence prevention
curriculum; Grades 1-3. Seattle, WA:
Author.
3. Committee for Children. (1992b).
Second Step: A violence prevention
curriculum; Grades 4-5. Seattle, WA:
Author.
4. Committee for Children. (1997).
Second Step: A violence prevention
curriculum: Middle school/junior
high. Seattle, WA: Author.
5. Committee for Children. (1991).
Second Step: A violence prevention
curriculum: Preschool-kindergarten.
Seattle, WA: Author.
6. Frey, K.S., Hirschstein, M.K., &
Guzzo, B.A. (2000). Second Step:
Preventing aggression by promoting
social competence. Journal of
Emotional and Behavioral Disorders,
8, 102-112.
7. Grossman, D.C., Neckerman, H.J.,
Koepsell, T.D., Liu, P.Y., Asher,
K.N., Beland, K. et al (1997).
Effectiveness of a violence prevention
curriculum among children in
elementary school: A randomized
controlled trial. Journal of the
American Medical Association, 277,
1605-1611.
8. Mehas, K., Boling, K., Sobieniak, S.,
Sprague, J., Burke, M.D., & Hagan, S.
(1998). Finding a safe haven in
middle school. Teaching Exceptional
Children, 30, 20-23.
9. Committee for Children’s Website for
the Second Step program:
www.cfchildren.org/program_ss.shtml
Reviewed by: Jennifer Theule