Ten Compelling Reasons to Choose the Second Step Program | By: Kim Gulbrandson Today's blog entry is written by Dr. Kim Gulbrandson of Milwaukee Public Schools. Our district has been using the Second Step program for more than 15 years. We continue to use it because… It’s fun, interactive, and easy to use. Teachers and students like it. It’s cost effective (staff can share kits if necessary) The program is continually researched and updated, which complies with our district’s emphasis on evidence-based programs. It can be easily integrated with PBIS and RTI. It includes Academic Integration Activities, which makes it easy to reinforce in academic subject areas. It offers daily activities to reinforce the skills taught. Social-emotional learning is linked with student gains in achievement and reduction of risky behaviors. Curriculum support is readily available: Committee for Children offers both a client support line and an online community that feature lots of good resources and answers to questions about the curriculum. Teacher and student survey data in our district repeatedly show good results. For example, for the past three years, second-grade classrooms implementing the Second Step program have shown significant gains in the following areas from pretest to posttest: Ability to identify others’ emotions Use of physical and situational cues and perspective taking to identify emotions Ability to brainstorm alternative solutions to a problem Ability to formulate a prosocial solution for joining a group Ability to formulate a prosocial solution to gain access to something that isn’t yours Ability to predict consequences of a solution Ability to use an alternative prosocial solution when one solution isn’t working Knowledge of anger management techniques Why do you use the Second Step program?