Abstract
Despite all of the existing social skills curricula available to teachers, there is a lack of material that pertains specifically to the needs of students with emotional and social disabilities (ED). This project is intended to address that void by way of a guidebook that includes social skills lessons for educators who teach social skills to students with ED. The guidebook uses pro-active restorative (justice) practices as a means to deliver the social skills lessons to address issues tied to behavior, in order to pro-actively teach and reinforce positive behavior before a wrong-doing takes place. The pro-active restorative lessons include components of effective communication—recognizing a talking piece, patiently taking turns, active listening, and successfully expressing one's thoughts. Teaching students the foundations of effective communication before a wrong-doing occurs can greatly improve how a student reacts to conflict and may even prevent an offense from happening altogether.