Group Effectiveness
We recognise the importance of social connection, cohesion and belongingness within school communities. Whether or not individuals feel a shared sense of identity and purpose within their school community can have a profound effect upon individual psychological wellbeing. And if the culture, ethos and values of a school is truly representative of the members that make up that community, members will likely feel a strong sense of affiliation with, and commitment to, their school community.
In recognition of this, ConnectEd’s offer to school communities includes flexible and adaptable programs of support at the small group, large group and whole community levels.
Prosocial in schools
Recent advances in evidence-based care include an exciting partnership between the worlds of Evolution Science and Psychological Science, aimed at building productive, equitable and collaborative groups. This project, known as Prosocial (Atkins, Wilson & Hayes, 2019), aims to support groups of people across a wide range of contexts, including schools, in implementing the eight key characteristics of highly effective groups.
These eight characteristics, originally described by the famous Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom include developing:
A shared sense of identity and purpose.
Equitable distribution of contributions and benefits.
Fair and inclusive decision making.
Monitoring and supporting agreed behaviours.
Graduated responding to helpful and unhelpful behaviours.
Fast and fair conflict resolution.
The autonomy to self-govern.
Collaborative relations with other groups.
As these eight key features – known as the eight Core Design Principles (CDPs) – are universal and relevant to all human groups, the potential applications of Prosocial within schools is far-reaching. Prosocial can be adapted and applied to support anything from developing cohesive and effective leadership teams to enabling positive, collaborative and healthy relationships between members of a particular class or tutor group.
At ConnectEd, we offer a range of flexible and adaptable Prosocial programs of support, according to schools’ individual contexts, needs and priorities. These services are always delivered by experienced and skilled psychologists who are accredited Prosocial trainers.
We also offer training, supervision and support to psychologists and other educationally focused care-professionals in the use of Prosocial in education.
For more information, including prices:
Support for schools and other educational settings in the use of Prosocial can vary, according to context, in terms of the number and duration of sessions required. Often, as few as three or four sessions can help bring about substantial changes at the group and community levels, though often schools like to dig deeper into the Core Design Principles, through further sessions thereafter.
We offer competitive, up-front, standard and full quotation costings for all services offered at ConnectEd. To find out more, and to explore options for Prosocial training, supervision and/or support, get in touch with us via email or fill out the form below.