Many of the children or young people referred to Witherslack Care & Education Initiatives have difficulties because they have not learned or have wrongly learned those essential skills necessary for good social interactions. Our children's social difficulties are exacerbated when compounded by other social, emotional or cognitive difficulties. Normally children learn social behaviour by imitating that which is effective. Their subsequent repetitions produce positive reinforcement and encouragement to maintain the behaviour.
That our children have not learned, that they may not have experienced appropriate models, or that after modelling their behaviour may not have been acknowledged indicates that a laissez-faire approach to social learning is unsatisfactory. Those children who do not acquire appropriate skills are, on leaving our protective community, at risk of social isolation, social neglect, social derision and a loss of self-esteem. A socially skilled child is likely to be a personally well-adjusted one, but a socially de-skilled child is rarely likely to evidence personal adjustment.
At Witherslack Care & Education Initiatives the approach to improving individual children's social relationship skills recognises that social development cannot be divorced from other learning experiences whether they be aesthetic, creative, moral, physical, spiritual, recreational, etc. Moreover, formal learning, social and leisure clubs, ad hoc activities, group work, and indeed all situations and environments within and without the home are appropriate to enabling children and young people to improve their social skills.
