ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses both the basic principles and the interventions for fostering students’ personal/social strengths and strengths-enhancing environments. It provides a number of examples of interventions and environments at different grade levels that reflect a strengths-based framework. Supporting and facilitating personal and social development of students has been an important focus of school counselors, even though truly comprehensive developmental counseling programs have rarely been implemented. The National Standards and National Model provide intuitively valid standards, competencies, and indicators to the school counselor for promoting the personal and social development of all students. The positive psychology perspective of Martin Seligman and his colleagues represents another approach to identifying and measuring personal/social strengths. I Can Problem Solve Program produced increases in prosocial behaviors such as caring, sharing, and cooperating in grade 5, as well as increases in standardized achievement test scores and reading grade book levels.
