Life skills workshop impact: enhancing classroom adaptation for at-risk primary students in Chile

Difficulties adjustment to school in childhood are one of the risk factors for developing mental health problems. When school adjustment problems arise, they tend to persist over time; therefore, early identification and intervention can help prevent these problems from worsening. In this vein, preventive strategies have been proposed based on developing socio-emotional skills that improve school adjustment. In Chile, school adjustment problems are addressed through preventive workshops based on social-emotional learning, which conforms to Life Skills Program 1.

This research aimed to analyze the effectiveness of preventive workshops belonging to Life Skills Program 1 to improve adjustment to the classroom among Chilean primary school students.

The design of this research was a retrospective quasi-experimental type, with pre -and post-test measurements. The experimental condition consisted of 185 children in the 1st grade of primary school who were classified in the at-risk group in the Teacher Observation of Classroom Adaptation-Revised. These children received preventive workshops of the Life Skills Program 1. Secondary data were used for data analysis.

In an initial sample of 1.482 students, 185 were classified as at risk using the TOCA-RR instrument and received the intervention. After the intervention ended, 123 students were no longer at risk, while 62 remained at risk. Results evidenced that workshops were successful in 66.5% of the cases.

The preventive workshops are effective in reducing school adjustment problems in at-risk children, which, if not treated in time, could trigger mental health problems in childhood that could extend into adulthood.