About – Social Success Central

SOCIAL SUCCESS ABOUT

ABOUT SOCIAL SUCCESS CENTRAL

Social Success Central is a social-emotional education company that offers bestselling books and positive education programs to parents, educators, students, school systems, and professionals. We approach socialization from a strengths-based focus and provide non-clinical easy-to-implement tips to help children, teens, and adults form strong friendship connections and reduce the risk of bullying.

Our programs and materials allow users to improve their ability to navigate the social world, while simultaneously building self-esteem, self-confidence, and pride in their strengths as an individual. For educators and professionals, we provide the tools to educate their classrooms and practices to foster the science of well-being by providing:

Books & Workbooks;
Topic Tip Sheets
Posters and other visual supports;
Activities that teach resiliency skills;
Games that teach friendship skills;
Ice Breakers & Conversation Starters;
Frameworks: Ice Cream “Social”;
Character Strengths Activities; and
Guided Social Phrases and Language.

Our strategies and tips are also for use in unstructured settings such as recess, parties, on the bus, family gatherings, and school lunch. We offer a non-clinical, non-treatment-based approach to social learning with easy-to-implement tips that users can easily generalize across all settings.

OUR MISSION

Social Success Central’s mission is to approach social-emotional learning from a strengths-based focus and provide non-clinical, easy-to-implement tips to help children, teens, and adults form strong friendship connections. We infuse the scientifically proven theory of well-being throughout our books, publications, social skills and school-based programs. Well-being is achieved when individuals learn strategies to enhance the key elements of positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievement.

SOCIAL SUCCESS CENTRAL

Celebrates every individual’s unique qualities and coaches them on how to use their signature strengths to solve problems;
Demonstrates to clients their value for who they are and that they are worthy of friendship;
Mentors each person in a way that allows them to speak to individuals with honesty about areas of improvement. This approach enables clients to navigate the social world, while simultaneously building on strengths and enhancing self-esteem, self-confidence, optimism, pride, and overall well-being.

BIOGRAPHIES OF SOCIAL SUCCESS CENTRAL MANAGING PARTNERS

NADINE BRIGGS

CEO/Owner of Simply Social Kids and Author/Managing Partner of Social Success Central, LLC Nadine Briggs, CEO/Owner of Simply Social Kids (2007), a social education center in Tyngsboro, MA. She is also co-author of the best-selling How to Make and Keep Friends book series and managing partner of Social Success Central, LLC. Nadine has dual graduate certifications in Coaching Children & Teens, and Coaching Children & Teens with ADHD. She has expertise and certifications in bullying and cyberbullying prevention, Foundations of Positive Psychology, including learned optimism and resilience. She also holds certifications in bullying prevention through the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, Foundations of Positive Psychology, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Coaching, and the Girl Meets World curriculum, which addresses relational aggression in girls, and sibling relationships (Sibshops). Her training includes collaborative problem solving to teach children conflict resolution and in child anxiety from the Child Anxiety Network at Boston University.

Nadine has two adult children, her daughter has Down syndrome and son has ADHD, both are the catalyst for her current career. She has a personal passion for helping children find true friendships. She created Simply Social Kids to provide a sensory-simple, safe, accepting environment for all children. Her goal is to help children/teens/young adults find true friendship and connectedness. She is a parent/educator consultant and public speaker.

Simply Social Kids
One Industrial Way, Unit 4
Tyngsboro, MA 01879
978/764-2758
nbriggs@simplysocialkids.com

DONNA SHEA

Founder of the Peter Pan Center for Social and Emotional Growth and Author/Managing Partner of Social Success Central, LLC

Donna Shea is the Founder of the Peter Pan Center for Social and Emotional Growth (2002) in Boxborough, MA. She holds a degree in Behavioral Science from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. Donna is a pioneer in the concept of a non-clinical approach to social-emotional learning. Donna’s award-winning programs have been helping children achieve social success for over sixteen years. Also, Donna has certifications in bullying prevention through the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, Foundations of Positive Psychology and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Coaching. She is also versed in the process of Collaborative Problem Solving.

Donna founded her center in response to providing parents a resource that was not available when her sons (now grown) were small. Donna brings 31 years of life experience in supporting her sons and other children and teens around the areas of ADHD, Anxiety, Autism Spectrum Disorders, and Sensory Challenges. Donna’s driving passion has always been for families of children with challenges to have a safe place to be themselves and improve the skills that will help them be more socially and behaviorally successful.

Donna has also provided professional development programming over the years to many groups and is a parent and social-emotional education consultant and is a seasoned public speaker.

Simply Social Kids
One Industrial Way, Unit 4
Tyngsboro, MA 01879
978/764-2758
nbriggs@simplysocialkids.com

THEIR PARTNERSHIP

Donna and Nadine have been close friends as well as colleagues for many years. Both are parents of children with specific needs that include Down syndrome, ADHD, Anxiety, OCD, and Sensory Processing Disorder. They are passionate about helping children make and keep friends and together formed How to Make and Keep Friends, LLC in 2010, and have recently changed the company’s name to Social Success Central to reflect its present and future growth. Both Donna and Nadine facilitate community-based social learning groups at their centers in Massachusetts and have created the Social Success in School initiative. This comprehensive group of programs for students, educators, and parents is designed to foster positive social skills and interactions at school and among students. Their focus is to pro-actively prevent bullying before it happens with a focus on strategies and tools to build confidence, promote kindness and empathy, accept differences and teach conflict resolution. Their programs draw from evidence-based models of positive psychology and education and cognitive behavioral coaching frameworks.

In 2010, Nadine and Donna collaborated to write their first book How to Make and Keep Friends: Tips for Kids to Overcome 50 Common Social Challenges. The book contained the collective knowledge that they acquired from their training as Social-Emotional Specialists, raising their children and from their successful, individually owned social skills centers. The book became an Amazon bestseller, so they went on to write a parent companion book, How to Make and Keep Friends: Helping Your Child Achieve Social Success.

Since then Nadine and Donna have written additional workbooks that are focused on specialty topics using strategies and tips that have worked well for children and teens who attend their centers. These books include:

I Feel Mad! Tips for Kids on Managing Angry Feelings,
I Feel Worried! Tips for Kids on Overcoming Anxiety and
I Need to Win! Tips for Kids on Good Sportsmanship
Bully Busting and Managing Meanies: Tips for Kids on Managing Conflict
Tips for Teens on Life and Social Success

Donna and Nadine have multiple books planned for future publication.