Life skills workshop impact: enhancing classroom adaptation for at-risk primary students in Chile

Background: Difficulties adjustment to school in childhood are one of the risk factors for developing mental health problems. When school adjustment problems arise, they tend to persist over time; therefore, early identification and intervention can help prevent these problems from worsening. In this vein, preventive strategies have been proposed based on developing socio-emotional skills that improve school adjustment. In Chile, school adjustment problems are addressed through preventive workshops based on social–emotional learning, which conforms to Life Skills Program 1. Objective: This research aimed to analyze the effectiveness of preventive workshops belonging to Life Skills Program 1 to improve adjustment to the classroom among Chilean primary school students. Materials and methods: The design of this research was a retrospective quasi-experimental type, with pre -and post-test measurements. The experimental condition consisted of 185 children in the 1st grade of primary school who were classified in the at-risk group in the Teacher Observation of Classroom Adaptation-Revised. These children received preventive workshops of the Life Skills Program 1. Secondary data were used for data analysis. Results: In an initial sample of 1.482 students, 185 were classified as at risk using the TOCA-RR instrument and received the intervention. After the intervention ended, 123 students were no longer at risk, while 62 remained at risk. Results evidenced that workshops were successful in 66.5% of the cases. Conclusion: The preventive workshops are effective in reducing school adjustment problems in at-risk children, which, if not treated in time, could trigger mental health problems in childhood that could extend into adulthood.