Kaija Appelqvist-Schmidlechner, Antti Liski, Mikko Kampman, Katja Björklund, Pia Solin, Nina Tamminen, Päivi Santalahti, Tytti Solantaus "Together at school" - program focused on improving socio-emotional skills among school children in Finland. Pilot study on feasibility and perceived benefits of the program Schools have an important role to play in fostering not only children's cognitive development but also their social and emotional development. "Together at School" is a program developed for the Finnish school system in 2003-2012. The focus of the program is on improving socio-emotional skills and well being and preventing psychosocial problems in elementary school children (7-12 years). The program consists of two components: teacher-administered classroom interventions as well as whole school approach aiming at organizational changes in knowledge of the staff, working climate and in the co-operation between teachers as well as between school and home. The development of the program consists of three phases: method development, pilot study and large scale effectiveness study. The aim of the pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility and perceived benefits of the program in order to see if the program is ready to move on to a large scale effectiveness study. Altogether 23 classrooms from first grade to sixth grade (N=549) participated from spring 2011 to fall 2012. Informants were teachers (n=23), head masters (n=4), children (n=451) and their parents. Data were collected by questionnaires at three time points. Teachers and parents reported children’s emotional and behavioral strengths and difficulties using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The feasibility of the program was assessed by children and teachers by questionnaires including questions about the class-room interventions. Our data suggest that during the follow up, emotional symptoms as well as peer problems reduced significantly among boys. However, statistically significant changes were not observed among girls. Bullying behaviour was significantly reduced according to both teachers and children. Different interventions were assessed as beneficial for the children by 92-100 percent of teachers and pleasant by 84-90 percent of children. Findings in the pilot study concerning feasibility and perceived benefits of the program were encouraging. It has to be noted that this study only concerns participants’ perceptions without a control. However, these findings lend support for the next step in the program development, a large scale effectiveness study in a randomized setting.