Cornerstones
Cornerstones is a substance abuse prevention and wellness education program for students in grades 5-7 which uses the art of storytelling as it primary media for discussion, instruction and skill building. Some secondary benefits include enhanced listening skills, language comprehension, and increased attention spans.
I have been utilizing storytelling within my prevention work for twenty years. Storytelling has been recognized as an effective technique by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) in the mid-1990’s through its funded training initiative, “Storytelling for Empowerment,” written by Annabelle Nelson, Ph.D.
The Cornerstones program consists of four-eight story sessions with students of designated grade level. Each story selected is carefully chosen for age-appropriate content that will support and facilitate discussion for the classroom discussion sessions which follow throughout the day. Teachings, challenges faced by characters portrayed, etc. are used as catalysts for meaning discussion, self-reflection, skill building and other related activities. Some of the areas discussed include:
- Anger Management
- Character Education
- Decision Making
- Emotional Intelligence
- Grief & Loss
- Resiliency
- Self-Esteem
- Stress Reduction
- Substance Abuse Education
Utilizing story enables me to present and discuss sensitive subject matter in a manner that is less emotionally threatening, but very powerful for students. Students have the “safety net” of talking about issues that touch their lives through a character in the story.
In addition to classroom discussions, students work with images from the story that have meaning to them and complete written work to help them connect with the material more fully.
*Specialized programming is available for other grade levels.