MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES

The Blues Program (a cognitive-behavioral prevention group) is intended to actively engage high school students with depressive symptoms or at risk of onset of major depression in six weekly one-hour group sessions and home practice assignments designed to increase emotional resilience and reduce low mood/anxious thoughts.  Weekly sessions focus on building group rapport and increasing participant involvement in positive activities, learning and practicing cognitive restructuring techniques, and developing response plans to future life stressors.  In-session exercises require participants to apply skills taught throughout the program.  Home practice assignments are intended to reinforce the skills taught in the sessions and help participants learn how to apply these skills to their daily life.  Overall program goals are to reduce depression symptoms, prevent major depressive disorder development, and prevent substance abuse.

Bounce Back is a school-based group intervention for elementary students exposed to stressful and traumatic events.  Bounce Back teaches students ways to cope with and recover from traumatic experiences, so they can get back to doing what they want to do and need to do.  Administered by a master’s-level counselor, Bounce Back is based on the Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) and includes 10 group sessions, 1-3 group parent sessions, and 2-3 individual student sessions.

The Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) program is a school-based, group and individual intervention.  It is designed to reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and behavioral problems, and to improve functioning, grades and attendance, peer and parent support, and coping skills.  CBITS is designed for students from 5th grade through 12th grade who have witnessed or experienced traumatic life events and uses cognitive-behavioral techniques (e.g., psychoeducation, relaxation, social problem solving, cognitive restructuring, and exposure).  CBITS is designed for delivery in a school setting by mental health professionals such as social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, or counselors with clinical mental health intervention experience.  The program consists of 10 group sessions, 1-3 individual sessions, 2 parent psychoeducational sessions and 1 teacher educational session.