Courageous Classrooms: Skill of the Week

Forty customizable weekly lessons to teach, model, and reinforce life-long social, emotional, and behavioral skills

Starr Commonwealth's Courageous Classrooms: Skill of the Week is more than a program...it's access to a community of caring and dedicated professionals. Courageous Classrooms provides teachers and schools with interactive, organized ways to seamlessly incorporate social, emotional, and behavioral learning tools into your everyday classroom activities, as well as ways to share those lessons and learn with peers.

Please Note: Multi-user license pricing is based on a tiered structure, with the greater the number of licenses requested the greater the discount that is provided. When 10 or more individual licenses are desired, a multi-user license is in the best interest of the requester.

Program Overview

Includes 40 customizable weekly lessons to teach, model, and reinforce life-long social, emotional, and behavioral skills

Overview

The aim of the program is to empower teachers, schools, and their students to create Courageous Classrooms by providing each a basic understanding of the body’s response to toxic stress and trauma, teaching new skills to cope with every day triggers and school-related stressors, and reinforcing resilience and positive behavior. The content is designed to fit into elementary classrooms or school-wide Tier I behavioral health supports, but it can be easily adapted for all grade levels and generalized for all settings – including a child’s home, school, and community.

Materials Included

  • Comprehensive introductory video that introduces educators to the program concepts, implementation strategies, and underlying philosophy of how to support student’s social, emotional, and behavioral growth
  • 40 customizable weekly lessons (4 comprehensive units with 5 stand-alone lessons)
  • PowerPoint lessons to introduce and teach each skill in the classroom
  • Classroom visuals and/or poster of each skill or set of skills
  • Student worksheets for additional practice and review of each skill
  • Weekly staff emails for sharing information across a school or school system
  • Weekly parent/guardian letters to help extend lessons into homes and communities
  • Access to a community (through a closed Facebook group) of like-minded professionals actively using the Skill of the Week program. Teach, learn, and grow together as experts in social-emotional learning.

Testimonials

Courageous Classrooms: Skill of the Week has completely transformed how I approach teaching coping skills, social skills, and basic life skills to my students. Every lesson is explicit, trauma-focused, and actionable for myself and the students. I have seen such a positive change in how my students talk about their feelings and approach challenging situations (playing games, resolving conflicts, etc.). My students identify throughout the day when they see me using Skill of the Week skills all the time! Parents have also expressed gratitude for how their kids have been able to express their feelings and identify specific ways to approach situations at home. I can’t say enough how incredibly helpful Skill of the Week has been and how grateful I am to have access to it. I also use Skill of the Week at home with my own children and myself constantly. It is truly applicable to all people and all families.






Teacher New York
The Courageous Classrooms: Skill of the Week program is amazingly effective for students. Each week, I receive information explaining the week’s skill and describing the lesson and language used, as well as easy to decipher visuals that could be used as reminders. Being aware of these things was extremely helpful when I work with students in the library. If a situation arose that warranted the use of one of the Skill of the Week skills, the student and/or I could refer back to the language or visuals that were taught. The student would know exactly how to react and act for each situation. This was very effective in the de-escalation process. When other students who have had not had the program would experience similar social situations, I noticed that their choices of solutions were very different and not effective in solving the problem or coping with the situation. In these cases, I would often refer to the Skill of the Week visuals to talk and walk through the process, usually one-on-one. With all of the academic rigor that is expected of students today, unfortunately, it seems that instruction pertaining to social skills gets left behind. The Courageous Classroom: Skill of the Week program is the perfect solution for this and works for all students.
School Librarian New York

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Courageous Classrooms: Skill of the Week for?
The content is designed to fit into elementary classrooms or school-wide Tier I behavioral health supports, but it can be easily adapted for all grade levels and generalized for all settings – including a child’s home, school, and community.

What is included in the program?
Introductory overview video for teachers to learn implementation strategies, 40 customizable weekly lessons (4 comprehensive units with 5 stand-alone lessons), PowerPoints, classroom visuals, student worksheets, weekly staff email templates, and weekly parent/guardian email templates.

How much does it cost?
Please send an inquiry to Starr for details.

Can I start Courageous Classrooms at any point in the school year?
Absolutely! Our curriculum is designed to seamlessly integrate into your current school day. Please note, however, a few lessons are built to complement specific times of the year.

Meet the Authors

Two dedicated professionals with real-world experience

Erika Grevelding, LCSW-R

Erika Grevelding is a school social worker currently working at Milton Terrace Elementary School in Ballston Spa, NY. Her current role is to provide individual and group counseling services, facilitate the Courageous Classrooms: Skill of the Week program, and provide on-going staff and parent consultation. She is also a Therapeutic Crisis Intervention trainer for the district to provide updated trauma-informed de-escalation strategies. Erika has been a school social worker since 2008. Her approach in the school setting was influenced from her previous experience of working at Saratoga Center for the Family. This was a diverse, trauma-focused role that included individual, group, and family counseling using a family systems and strengths-based approach. In this position, she also provided home-based support, developed and facilitated parenting classes, and also provided prevention programs in local school districts. She received a Master of Social Work degree from the State University of New York at Albany.

Erika lives in Ballston Spa, NY with her husband, Patrick, and children, Kyle and Alexa, who provide endless opportunities to be curious about behavior and to enjoy life. She believes they always provide fun and unique perspectives resulting in an inspiration to grow along with an unconditional support to just be.

Colleen Germann, PsyD

Dr. Colleen Germann is a school psychologist currently working full-time at Milton Terrace Elementary School in Ballston Spa, NY. She has worked in various positions in the Ballston Spa Central School District since 2011. Her primary roles include assessment, direct intervention with students, and staff consultation within a three-tiered model of support. Dr. Germann’s interests include trauma-informed strategies in the classroom along with data management related to intervention effectiveness as well as providing consultation on systems-level change. She has experience chairing Committee on Special Education at the preschool and school-age level, which incorporates in-depth knowledge of state and national education law. Prior to her work as a school practitioner, she pursued her doctoral degree at the State University of New York at Albany in school psychology. Her dissertation research focused on school psychology internship satisfaction among early-career practitioners.

Dr. Germann lives in Glenville, NY with her husband, Matt, and son, Spencer, who inspire her with their courage and spirit every day.