Stepping Stones is an evidence-based social skills group therapy program developed by In Step’s Founder, Cathi Cohen. For more than 25 years, Stepping Stones has been raising the social IQ of children and their parents.

Stepping Stones is unique in that it follows a step-by-step approach to teaching elementary and middle school-age children how to make and maintain friends and increase the child’s awareness of the impact of his or her behavior on other children.

The children learn these skills through friendship group activities, exercises, and psycho-dramatic techniques, as well as practice assignments at home and peer feedback. We stress the importance of using these newly-learned skills at home and in school to reinforce the newly learned behaviors.

Participants in this program may be children with social deficits, a diagnosis of ADHD or anxiety, difficulty reading and responding to social cues, listening issues, lacking in self-awareness and perspective taking, and trouble communicating strong emotions effectively.

The Parents’ Role

Our research clearly demonstrates the critical role that simultaneous parent groups play in a child’s acquisition and generalization of the social skills kids need to make and keep friends. Stepping Stones emphasizes strategies and techniques for parents and children to try at home. Through reinforcement and sustained practice, parents are able to foster positive social and emotional change, more successfully manage challenging behaviors, and lessen family stresses and conflicts.

Raise Your Child’s Social IQ

Parents, this book offers direct, sense-making, step-by-step exercises that you can do with your children to increase their social skills and awareness. Based on the highly successful social skills taught for many years in Cathi Cohen’s training groups, Raise Your Child’s Social IQ provides parents with the structure to work on skills at home—how to join a group, how to choose friends, how to notice what people around them are feeling, how to handle angry feelings and much, much more. This updated version features new sections on cyberbullying and social media.

DBT Skills

These groups teach individuals coping mechanisms and interpersonal skills to manage emotions effectively. Participants learn mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness to enhance their overall well-being.

Parenting

The in-person and virtual parent groups at In Step are led by parenting experts who intimately understand the challenges of being a parent today. Weekly coaching sessions provide support, feedback, strategies, and methods that help you feel more in-charge at home.

Interpersonal Process

These groups for children, teens or adults offer an engaging, supportive space for individuals to share their feelings, thoughts, and experiences with the others, who provide feedback, differing perspectives, and insights.