Teach students the essential social skills directly related to friendship and trust.

At Stanfield, we know basic social skills are not always learned through osmosis. Even individuals who are only mildly developmentally or cognitively challenged may need to be explicitly taught the basics of meeting people, making friends, and deepening personal relationships. To meet this need, Stanfield has devoted a special section of its best-selling LifeSmart library exclusively to friendship skills.

PeopleSmart 1 and 2 features the Stanfield Comedy Players, comedic experts at delivering life lessons through laughter. PeopleSmart 1 contains three chapters: “How to Meet People,” “How to Turn an Acquaintance Into a Friend,” and “How to Deepen a Friendship.” PeopleSmart 2 focuses on trust and gullibility, and features the chapters, “How Not to Mistake Friendliness for Friendship,” “How to Avoid Getting into Trouble with Strangers,” and “How to Be Attractive to the Opposite Gender.”

The Becoming PeopleSmart videos are available as stand-alone teaching tools or as part of the entire LifeSmart library. The complete LifeSmart curriculum includes the PeopleSmart videos, as well as DateSmart, MoneySmart, SafetySmart, and JobSmart.

We want our students to have friends to enrich their lives, make them feel connected, and help them in times of need. One of the key thrusts of the PeopleSmart social skills program is the distinction it emphasizes between friends, acquaintances, and strangers.

Students are challenged to rethink the common tendency to refer to anyone they know as a friend. Your students will learn that friends are people who look out for their best interests and who genuinely care about their well-being, acquaintances are simply people they have met, recognize, or interacted with from time to time, and strangers are people who they have never met and don’t know at all. In PeopleSmart your students will learn the NotSmart and the PeopleSmart ways to meet people, make friends, develop long-term relationships and avoid being taken advantage of by “friendly” acquaintances and strangers.

The distinction between friends and acquaintances is critical, especially for a population that has a history in our culture of being easily taken advantage of and exploited. By being aware of these distinctions, students will be able to avoid exploitation and maintain healthy friendships.

Whether with a friend, acquaintance, teacher, supervisor, or in the community, your students need good social skills for a successful independent life. With PeopleSmart, you’ll teach the essential social skills needed to promote graceful, social interactions and to establish positive relationships.