Mental Health Prevention and/or Early Intervention (Child & Adolescent) Programs

The Body Project is delivered to groups of 6-10 participants in 4 1-hour sessions by 1 or 2 facilitators. Participants complete a series of verbal, behavioral, and written activities in which they collectively explore the negative effects of pursuing the unrealistic appearance ideal espoused for women in U.S. culture. These activities are designed to reduce pursuit of the beauty ideal, which in turn aims to reduce body dissatisfaction, unhealthy dieting, negative affect, eating disorder symptoms, risk for future onset of eating disorders, and the harmful effects of social media use.

The Coping Power Program is based on an empirical model of risk factors for potential antisocial behavior. For high-risk children, it addresses deficits in social cognition, self-regulation, peer relations, and positive parental involvement. The Coping Power Program, which has both a child and parent intervention component, is designed to be presented in an integrated manner. The Coping Power Child Component consists of 34 group sessions. The Coping Power Parent Component consists of 16 sessions offered during the same time frame. The child component focuses on anger management, social problem solving, and practicing skills to resist peer pressure. The parent component of the program focuses on supporting involvement and consistency in parenting, which also contributes to better adjustment. Improvement in all these areas, particularly around times of change such as going to middle school, can reduce the number of problem behaviors that can arise during these transitional times.

Early Risers: Skills for Success is a multicomponent, developmentally focused, competency-enhancement program that targets elementary school students (6-12 years old) who are at high risk for early development of conduct problems, including substance use. This program is based on the premise that early, comprehensive and sustained intervention is necessary to target multiple risk and protective factors. It uses integrated child-, school-, and family-focused interventions to move high-risk children onto a more adaptive developmental pathway.

KiVa Antibullying Program is a bullying prevention program for schools offering basic education. It provides feasible and ready-made tools for teachers to both prevent bullying from happening and intervene in it. The program has three core components: prevention, intervention, and monitoring. Prevention is targeted at the whole school community. Teachers implement the program by delivering a set of student lessons to target grades (1, 4, and 7). Intervention is carried out by a designated KiVa team that is trained to follow the guided procedure to tackle bullying cases. The prevalence of bullying and victimization is monitored via a yearly student and staff survey which is filled in online. The program offers online learning platforms and video resources in addition to printed materials such as parent’s guide or teacher manuals.

Good Behavior Game®/PAX Good Behavior Game® (PAX GBG) are one and the same. Scientifically, it is the Good Behavior Game®, and commercially and in educational settings it is preferred by Johns Hopkins University staff and users to use the softer, “relational frame” name for use with children, families, and staffs as the PAX Good Behavior Game or “PAX,” which means Peace, Productivity, Health, and Happiness.

The PAX Good Behavior Game (PAX GBG) is a universal classroom-based preventive intervention that is designed to create a nurturing environment for all children. The intervention aims to increase on-task behavior, focused attention, and self-regulation in students while decreasing disruptive, withdrawn, and violent behavior. Unlike a curriculum, the intervention is designed to integrate seamlessly into classroom instruction by providing the teacher or after-school professional with ten research-based behavioral health strategies for use in concert with daily instruction.

ParentCorps is designed to be an enhancement to public pre-K programs, specifically those in historically disinvested, low-income neighborhoods. ParentCorps offers three components:

• Professional development for educators and school staff
• Parenting Program for families
• Social-emotional learning program for pre-K children

The goal of ParentCorps is to strengthen the family-school connection and emotionally responsive environments at home and at school in support of children’s health and well-being.

PreVenture^® is a prevention and early intervention program for youth aged 12 to 18 years. The program offers brief, workshops that teach personality-specific cognitive-behavioral skills to youth to promote mental health and reduce the risk of substance use.

PreVenture^® aims to promote self-efficacy and cognitive-behavioral skills among youth to help them cope with the numerous developmental challenges that many young people face, such as academic stress, peer pressure, interpersonal conflict, and identity development. This personalized approach aims to empower young people to build resilience and develop effective coping strategies to help them better manage their personality style. The program is delivered in two 90-minute personality-focused workshops (either online or in-person) either in a school or community setting and involves group and individual exercises, is manual-based, but guided by a trained facilitator.

Resourceful Adolescent Program-Adolescent (RAP-A) was developed to meet the need for a universal resilience building program for teenagers which could be readily implemented in a school setting. A universal program targets all teenagers in a particular grade, as opposed to those at higher risk for depression (indicated or selective approaches) or a treatment group.

RAP-A is a positively focused program that consists of 11 sessions of approximately 50 minutes duration. The program is run with groups of adolescents varying in size from 8 to 16 students, usually as an integral part of the school curriculum (from grades 7 to 10). RAP-A attempts to integrate both cognitive-behavioral and interpersonal approaches to improve coping skills and build resilience to promote positive development.

The PATHS® (Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies) Curriculum is a comprehensive social-emotional learning program designed to reduce aggression and behavior problems and to increase emotional and social competencies in preschool and elementary school-aged children. This curriculum is intended to be used by educators and counselors in the classroom to simultaneously target prevention of future emotional and behavioral problems (all children), as well as intervention (e.g., students with poor classroom behavior and performance). In addition to detailed scripted lessons and materials, generalization and academic integration strategies are incorporated in the program to facilitate use of skills throughout the day (e.g., in the "teachable moments") and to promote the integration of social, emotional, and academic learning and development. Although primarily designed for use in the school setting (whole classroom or smaller groups), the program can be adapted for other locations. Information and activities are included for use with parents. An after-care version is also available.

PATHS® is a registered trademark of PATHS Program LLC, the distributor of The PATHS® Curriculum.

The Blues Program is a brief manualized cognitive-behavioral prevention intervention for high school-aged adolescents with elevated depressive symptoms. The program consists of 6 weekly 1-hour group sessions and home practice assignments. Weekly sessions focus on building group rapport and increasing participant involvement in pleasant activities (all sessions), learning and practicing cognitive restructuring techniques (sessions 2-4), and developing response plans to future life stressors (sessions 5-6). In-session exercises help participants learn the program skills. Home practice assignments aim to reinforce the skills taught in the sessions and help participants learn how to apply these skills to their daily life.

Fostering Healthy Futures - Preteen (FHF-P) is a mentoring and skills group program for preadolescent children (ages 9–11) who have current or previous child welfare involvement due to one or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). These ACEs may include the experience of maltreatment; out-of-home placement; instability in housing, caregivers, or schools; and/or parental substance use, mental illness, or incarceration.

Skills Groups: Children attend skills groups which meet for 1.5 hours/week for 30 weeks. The groups follow a manualized curriculum that combines cognitive-behavioral strategies with activities designed to help children process experiences related ACEs. For example, topics include: emotion recognition, problem solving, anger management, cultural identity, change and loss, and peer pressure. Multicultural stories and activities are integrated throughout.

Mentoring: Children receive 30 weeks of 1:1 mentoring (2-4 hours per week). Mentors work to: 1) create relationships with children that serve as positive examples for future relationships, 2) advocate for needed services, 3) help children generalize and practice skills learned in group, 4) engage children in educational, social, cultural, and recreational activities, and 5) promote positive future outlooks.

FHF-P targets risk and protective factors that have been identified as strong predictors of adolescent mental health problems, risk behaviors and associated outcomes.

CIFFTA is a 12–24-week outpatient treatment for adolescents 11 to 18 years old and their family/caregivers. CIFFTA incorporates content relevant to diverse adolescents (e.g., race, ethnicity, LGBTQ) and is designed to engage marginalized communities, reduce symptoms of behavioral and mental disorders and substance use, and to improve family functioning (e.g., increase parental involvement and cohesion and reduce conflict). CIFFTA uses an adaptive and flexible modular design to tailor treatment to unique clinical and cultural characteristics. CIFFTA includes individual adolescent treatment, family treatment, and psychoeducational components. Its Social Ecological and Human Development foundation means it focuses on 1) sharing information, building skills, and increasing motivation at the individual child level; 2) creating more adaptive and healthy interactions in the family; 3) empowering parents to work more effectively with school, health, welfare and juvenile justice systems; and 4) buffering destructive societal messages and forces. Materials are available in Spanish and English.

GGC is a designed to help parents develop positive parenting and family management skills. The goal of GGC is to prevent substance abuse and other risky behaviors among teens by improving family communication and family bonding which has been shown to be critically important in reducing or inhibiting adolescent participation in antisocial behaviors.

During the course of GCC, parents learn to set clear family guidelines on drugs, as well as learn and practice skills to strengthen family bonds, help their children develop healthy behaviors, and increase children's involvement in the family.

I Can Problem Solve (ICPS) is a preventive and rehabilitative program designed to lessen disruptive behaviors. It is a cognitive approach that teaches children ages 4 to 12 how to think, not what to think, in ways that help them learn to resolve interpersonal problems that arise with peers and adults. They learn that behavior has causes, that people have feelings, and that there is more than one way to solve a problem. The curriculum is divided into two parts:

• Pre-problem solving skills -- learning a problem solving vocabulary, identifying one's own and others' feelings, and considering another's point of view
• Problem solving skills -- thinking of more than one solution, considering consequences, and age-appropriate sequencing and planning skills.

Adults learn a problem solving approach to handling conflicts and other problem situations that helps children associate their newly acquired problem solving skills with what they do and how they behave in real life.

Listening and Led by Youth in Foster Care: Grief, Hope, and Transitions (L.Y.G.H.T.) is a trauma-informed peer grief support program designed to address both death and non-death losses experienced by adolescents and young adults (ages 12–23) in foster care. L.Y.G.H.T. is a youth-led and youth-driven program facilitated by supportive adults who work within the child welfare system. Participants meet biweekly to engage in discussions and provide peer support in navigating the myriad of issues they have experienced during and after removal from their homes and placement into foster care. Participation in L.Y.G.H.T. groups is voluntary, and participants are grouped by age (teens and young adults) and supported by two trained adult facilitators. The topics for discussion are generated by the participants, prioritizing peer support and fostering a sense of shared understanding. The program does not follow a fixed curriculum, allowing for a flexible and participant-driven approach.

The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) is a framework for creating systemic change by building a school climate that discourages bullying and addresses it effectively, if it occurs. It is designed for students in grades K-12 and involves all staff, students, parents, and the community in bullying prevention efforts. All students participate in most aspects of the program, while students who bully others and students who are bullied receive additional individualized interventions. The OBPP is a coordinated collection of research-based components that addresses the problem of bullying at four levels: school-wide, classroom, individual, and community. OBPP schools receive training and consultation from certified Olweus Trainer-Consultants prior to implementation. The staff forms a school coordinating committee and receives ongoing consulting support. The program includes resources for engaging with families and community members, including holding educational events about bullying issues, communicating with parents regarding bullying incidents, and classroom meetings.

Positive Action (PA) is a universal program created for students in school kindergarte–eighth grade that provides an instructor's kit at each grade level. The program aims to motivate students intrinsically to be their best selves by teaching them that they feel good about themselves when they do positive actions. The program teaches the positive actions for the whole self: physical, intellectual social and emotional through six units, which are the same at each grade. This enables the entire school to be learning the same concept around the same time, thus providing the setting for use of the school wide climate development kit(s) to reinforce positive behaviors school wide daily. This reinforcement enables students to experience good feelings about themselves when they do positive actions. For students needing more intense support, there is a counselor's kit. All kits have a manual with scripted lessons, planned activities and colorful, engaging supplementary materials.

The Second Step Early Learning program for PreK children is a universal, classroom-based program designed to increase children’s school-readiness and decrease problem behaviors by promoting social-emotional competence and self-regulation. It offers direct instruction and teaches skills that strengthen students’ ability to learn, have empathy, manage emotions, and solve problems.

The Second Step Early Learning program provides developmentally appropriate explicit skills instruction, offers content and media that is age-appropriate, and is designed to engage students in developing skills to enhance their emotion management, situational awareness, and school readiness.

The Social Decision Making Program is a program which is designed to give students the tools they need to be happy, healthy, and productive global citizens, who achieve academically as well as socially.

It teaches children social and decision making skills they can use to make sound decisions, pursue healthy life choices, and avoid the serious social problems such as bullying, substance abuse, violence, and academic failure.

The goals of Social Decision Making Program are:

• To develop children's self control and social awareness skills (including, but not limited to: identifying, monitoring, and regulating stress and emotions, group cooperation, and the ability to develop positive peer relationships).
• To improve students' social decision-making and problem-solving skills by training educators, parents, and human service workers to be effective facilitators of those skills.
• To impact upon children's self-esteem and sense of self-efficacy by providing children with a problem-solving framework and social competencies upon which they can rely in stressful situations.
• To increase positive social behaviors and healthy life choices.

Teaching Kids to Cope (TKC) is a classroom-based group experience to promote and maintain mental health in adolescents through lecture, group discussions, role playing, brainstorming, handouts, group projects, and practice of problem-solving skills. Typical session topics will include:

• Learning to trust
• Developing a positive self image
• Identifying life stresses
• Identifying positive and negative ways of coping with stress.

Specific techniques for positive coping will be practiced in the group in relation to such stresses as family relationships, school problems, and peer relationships.

The Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management Program is a group prevention intervention/training delivered to teachers (which can include teacher aides, school psychologists, and school counselors) of children ages 3-8 years). Group leaders work with teachers in a collaborative and interactive way to strengthen teachers’ classroom management strategies, promote children’s prosocial behavior, school readiness, and reduce children’s classroom aggression and noncooperation with peers and teachers. The program also helps teachers work with parents to support their school involvement and promote consistency between home and school. The program can be delivered as a preventive intervention to all teachers or teachers can participate in the program to address the behaviors or a specific target child with disruptive or oppositional behaviors.

Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) is a trauma-informed, whole-child approach to caring for vulnerable children and youth. Grounded in attachment theory and developmental neuroscience, TBRI Caregiver Training is designed to help caregivers to see the needs and meet the needs of children and youth in their care. The TBRI caregiving model is based on three sets of interacting principles: Connecting, Empowering, and Correcting. Consistent with the three pillars of trauma-informed care, the three sets of principles focus on building trust and felt-safety in the context of healthy relationships (Connecting), developing self-regulation skills (Empowering), and fostering behavioral and social competence (Correcting). TBRI Caregiver Training is designed to move from theory into practical applications by giving participants a knowledge base, then providing them with real-life strategies and tools they can use with children and youth.

Wyman’s Teen Connection Project (TCP) focuses on building social connections among high school age youth. The program consists of two trained adults facilitating 12 TCP curriculum lessons in weekly 45–60-minute group meetings of no greater than 15 participants. Lessons include team building exercises, interactive activities, participant sharing, and peer discussions. Throughout the program, participants explore social connection, including barriers to connection. The aim is for them to develop positive and supportive relationships with one another. TCP is premised on several key factors: 1) the social experiences and social and emotional skills of adolescents are incredibly strong mediators of their academic and life outcomes; 2) adolescence is one of the most socially focused stages of the lifespan as teens are biologically and developmentally wired to learn to manage peer relationships; and 3) adolescent peer experiences are ripe for change and can lead to powerful social and emotional learning and enhanced life outcomes.

The eNew Beginnings Program for Divorcing and Separating Families (eNBP) is an online parenting-after-divorce program. It is designed to decrease children's internalizing and externalizing problems by teaching parents skills to increase positive family interactions and active listening, use effective discipline strategies; and reduce children’s exposure to interparental conflict. Activities include didactic presentations, skills demonstration videos, interactive exercises, review of use of skills, troubleshooting difficulties, and assignment of home practice. Parents also receive text message reminders to use the program skills. The program can be used on a smartphone, tablet, or computer and there are separate versions for fathers and mothers. The program is a 10-week program. There is a 6-week version of the program that is specifically for parents who are court-mandated to complete a parenting program, but it has not been rated by the CEBC.