I CAN DO

OVERVIEW

I CAN DO is a school-based primary prevention program that uses a 13 session curriculum to teach general coping skills and how to apply them to five scenarios that many children experience: parental separation/divorce, loss of a loved one, moving to a new home/school, spending significant time without adult supervision, and feeling “different.” An experimental evaluation found positive impacts for problem solving and self-efficacy, but not for knowledge of stressors or social support network size.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target population: Elementary school students

I CAN DO is a school-based primary prevention program designed to teach general coping skills. It consists of a 13 session curriculum with each session lasting about 45 minutes. The sessions are facilitated by clinical psychology graduate students. The curriculum teaches coping skills that children learn to apply to five stressful life experiences that they might have to deal with: parental separation/divorce, loss of a loved one, moving to a new home/school, spending significant time without adult supervision, and feeling “different.” The curriculum is broken into six units. The first unit focuses on general coping skills and introduces a six step problem solving sequence through activities and role play exercises. It also teaches children to seek social support when they encounter problems that are beyond their control. The other five units each address one of the stressors. A film or story is used to introduce the stressor, and then the children learn skills for coping with that stressor.

EVALUATION(S) OF PROGRAM

Evaluated population: Eighty-eight fourth-grade students from two classrooms in each of two schools in a small, primarily white lower-middle class, Midwestern town participated in the study. The sample was 55 percent female, and 85 percent white, and 59 percent came from two-parent homes.

Approach: In each school, one classroom was randomly assigned to complete the program during the fall semester (immediate-intervention) and the other was assigned to complete it during the spring semester (delayed-intervention control). Data for this efficacy study were collected at the beginning and end of the fall semester on knowledge about the five stressors, self-efficacy for coping with the stressors, problem solving vignettes, and social support network size.

Results: There was no program impact on knowledge of the stressors, although both groups improved over time. There was a positive impact on self-efficacy for coping with death or divorce, but not for overall self-efficacy or for coping with moving, lack of adult supervision, or differences. Based on responses to the vignettes, there was a positive impact on problem solving overall and for scenarios involving feeling different, divorce, and social support. There was no impact on social support network size.

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

References

Dubow, E.F., Schmidt, D. McBride, J., Edwards, S., & Merk, F.L. (1993). Teaching children to cope with stressful experiences: Initial implementation and evaluation of a primary prevention program. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 22, 428-440.

KEYWORDS: Children (3-11), Elementary, Males and Females, Rural and/or Small Towns, School-based, Skills Training, Other Social/Emotional Health

Program information last updated on 8/23/11.

© Child Trends 2003