To Alter Friendship Practices1

A school mental-health program was designed to be taught by teachers without consultation with mental health resource personnel. Twenty experimental and eighteen control classrooms in the fourth, sixth, and eighth grades were given pre- and post-sociometric tests to assess the impact of teaching one unit of the program?the Friendship Unit. Fourth-grade experimental classrooms (U=14.5; p<.025) and experimental boys in the sixth and eighth grades (U=98; p<.025 made significant gains in mutual friendships. Teachers without training in mental health were able to make an impact on the students that led to a new awareness and deeper understanding of their peer relationships. IN RECENT YEARS, a number of mental health programs have attempted to make the process of growing up a more positive and re warding experience for children. Some efforts, like those of Ojemann and his associates (9, 10, 13), seek to improve interpersonal func tioning among all children at elementary-grade levels. Other projects have emphasized the early detection of children with emotional difficulties, so that therapeutic attention might be possible (1, 5, 8). These two approaches have been categorized as primary and secondary preventive efforts, respectively. While some efforts have depended on resource personnel from mental-health professions for implementation, others work through teacher training to reach the children involved.