SOCIAL COMPETENCE AS RESILIENCE

FACTOR IN MENTAL HEALTH AND DISABILITY RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

Presentation within the

Plovdiv Conference

4.6.2015

Prof. Dr. Manfred Pretis

Dieses Projekt wurde mit Unterstützung der Europäischen Kommission finanziert. Die Verantwortung für den Inhalt dieser Veröffentlichung (Mitteilung) trägt allein der Verfasser; die Kommission haftet nicht für die weitere Verwendung der darin enthaltenen Angaben

Servus – Moin-Moin - Stravo

My work

My heartt

My work

About do I wish to talk

The importance of social competence as a resilience factor

The importance to belong to some one

The importance of social contacts to typically developped persons as resilience factor

What will be the „TAKE HOME MESSAGE“?

Social competence is all about

a) coming into contact with other persons

b) Keeping contact (in terms of creating a joint reality)

c) Solving conflicts

We need social competences to BELONG to others

Social competence can be understood as use of appropriate and effective social strategies in carrying out one’s interpersonal goals in the peer context (Gurlanick 2014).

• Resilience is tied to the ability to learn to live with

ongoing fear and uncertainty, namely,

• the ability to show positive adaptation in spite of

significant life adversities and the

• ability to adapt to difficult and challenging life

experiences (see Rutter 1985, 1999)

Lessons learnt from early resilience research

- Social contacts to „well functioning“ peers are seen as

one major resilience factor (Werner/Werner 1993,

Petermann & Schmidt 2006).

Margalit (1994) Loneliness among Children with Special

Needs: Theory, Research, Coping and Intervention

(2011), personal communication)

Most of young persons with disability feel lonely (in the

classroom). More important than increasing cognitive or

academic skills (about 5 IQ points etc.) is the feeling of

HAPPINESS for each young person (with or without

disability).

Social contacts trigger the feeling of Belonging

Despite INCLUSION especially parents of

children/youngsters with complex learning difficulites

sometime prefer „segregated settings“ (special schools) as

they recognize, that their children perceive a feeling of

BELONGING to somebody (to the group of peers).

Also within the pilot run in Austria within SGSCC project

some participants report, that within the group of (disabled)

peers they BELONG to somebody.

In mainstream (secondary) school they mostly felt excluded

Steps back to separation?

Guralnick 2014

To promote social competence we need the

OTHERS, especially well functionning OTHERS

A developmental heuristic model towards self-efficacy and self-control

I have „factors“ I have people, who take care of me I have people who give feedback to me I have people who protect me I have people who give me feedback about my sucess and about what I might have to improve

I can „factors“ I can do thinks by myself

I am „factors“ I am self-confident I am proud of my self I am a kind person ….

Social competence and the OTHERS

How to foster social competence?

Fostering social competence is necessary (from

the very beginning of the life) Guralnick, 2014

The importance of „translation processes“

a) Hands-on strategies (parents or professionals as

facilitators/mediators)

b) Creating supportive surroundings (inclusive settings)

c) https://www.bifie.at/buch/1024/4 only 0,45% (1 in 200

children with special needs in special schools), only

1,57% all over AT segregated

d) Fostering specific competences through strategy

training (e.g. within the SGSCC-project)

Resulting strategies

With friendly permission of Guralnick (2014)

Parents as moderators (Guralnick et al. 2003)

We are not able to „produce“ social competence

In the best case we are able to make bridges

Limitation of moderator model

Categorisation of children with disability in kindergarten

systems (

Ytterhus (2008)

- The kind peers

- The „strange“ peers (concerning behavioural pattern)

- The strange and sick peers (children with DS)

- The strange and weird ones (do not respect rules, hurt)

Social competence and peers

The importance of contact towards typically

develloped peers (Gutalnick et al (1996)

Sucessful communication for children with communication disorders was More likely if it happened with typically develloped peers.

Most young children learn prosocial skills through the natural process of observing and engageing in social interactions with socially competent peers.

• Odom, 2005

Translational Models (Guralnick (2014)

Who is benefiting from programs?

Example of translational processes (Guralnick

2014)

SGSCC games initiate „translational“ processes

On the level of cognitions

On the level of executive functions (memory, attention)

On the level of motivation (within „games“ in terms of a

quest)

We are looking forward to our evaluation data.

Personal feedback from participants are promising

SGSCC within translationals processes

www.games4competence.eu

Please visit our Lifelong learning Projects

www.icf-training.eu

www.games4competence.eu

MSH Medical School Hamburg GmbH

Fachhochschule für Gesundheit und Medizin

Tel.: 040 / 36 00 65 - 42

Fax: 040 / 36 00 65 - 43

E-Mail: info@medicalschool-hamburg.de

www.medicalschool-hamburg.de

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This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication

[communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held

responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Thank you and „SERVUS“ from AUSTRIA

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