Tiers+Mental+Health

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=RESEARCH-BASED, EVIDENCE-BASED INTERVENTIONS FOR TIER CONSIDERATIONS: =

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 * __META-ANALYSIS CLEARINGHOUSE:__**

=**//Specific programs for review today://**= __**Aggression Replacement Training**__ [] (ART) is a research-based, proven-effective approach for working with challenging youth. This revised and expanded edition is the culmination of over 30 years of use in schools, community agencies, juvenile institutions, and other settings. The authors elaborate on the techniques and strategies for each of Aggression Replacement Training's three components, clarifying the theory behind the interventions and offering user-friendly suggestions for successful implementation. They present program procedures in the form of sessions, including step-by-step instructions for conducting each group meeting. //Aggression Replacement Training features three coordinated and integrated components:// Provides 10 weeks of group training sessions for each of Aggression Replacement Training's targeted interventions: Social Skills Training, Anger Control Training, and Moral Reasoning. Appendixes include guidelines, checklists, moral reasoning problem situations, and summaries of outcome evaluations. An accompanying CD provides printable PDFs of all of the reproducible program forms, skill posters, and student handouts.
 * Social Skills Training —Teaches participants what to do, helping them replace antisocial behaviors with positive alternatives.
 * Anger Control —Teaches participants what not to do, helping them respond to anger in a nonaggressive manner and rethink anger-provoking situations.
 * Moral Reasoning —Helps raise participants' level of fairness, justice, and concern for the needs and rights of others.

__** Aggressors, Victims, **____** and Bystanders: Thinking and Acting To Prevent Violence **__ [] http://www.promisingpractices.net/program.asp?programid=161 http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/chapter2b-a.pdf

The core objectives of AVB are to encourage young people to examine their roles as aggressors, victims, and bystanders; develop and practice problem-solving skills; rethink beliefs that support the use of aggression; and generate new ways of thinking about and responding to conflict in each of these roles. A central feature of the curriculum is its four-step Think-First Model of Conflict Resolution. This model helps students pause and reflect when confronted with a conflict so they can define the situation in ways that lead to effective, positive solutions. The curriculum is presented in 12 45-minute classroom sessions conducted 1 to 3 times per week over 4 to 12 weeks. AVB can be taught by health educators, language arts teachers, police officers, school resource/safety officers, or physical education instructors.

__** AMIkids Personal Growth Model **__ [] The AMIkids Personal Growth Model (PGM) is a comprehensive approach to treatment for 10- to 17-year-old youth who have been adjudicated and, in lieu of incarceration, assigned to a day treatment program, residential treatment setting, or alternative school or who have been assigned to an alternative school after failing in a conventional school setting. The AMIkids PGM, which is intended for use over 6-8 months, is designed to target and reduce the risk factors that sustain delinquent behavior and academic failure, reduce recidivism, improve program completion rates, and promote academic achievement.

Before services are provided through the AMIkids PGM, the risks, needs, and motivation to change of the youth and his or her family are assessed. On the basis of these assessed needs, an appropriate treatment plan is developed, which combines the following components:
 * Education. The education component uses three primary methods to enhance learning: experiential education, project-based learning, and service learning. Participants attend classes in an academic setting, and teachers use a rigorous curriculum designed to address the participants' individualized needs and diverse learning styles. Teachers implementing this component must be certified and highly qualified on the basis of State, local, and AMIkids requirements.
 * Treatment. The treatment component is individualized on the basis of each participant's assessments, and research-based mental health and/or substance abuse interventions (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational enhancement therapy, functional family therapy, motivational interviewing) are provided to participants, as well as their families. Participants receive group services on a daily basis, and individual and family sessions are provided on a schedule determined by the individualized treatment plan. Staff implementing this component must be licensed mental health professionals or therapists/counselors who are supervised by a licensed mental health professional.
 * Behavior modification. The behavior modification component is designed to develop or strengthen desired prosocial behaviors and eliminate or weaken antisocial behaviors through three techniques using positive reinforcement: a point card system, a token economy, and a rank system. Staff implementing this component must be designated AMIkids Behavior Modification professionals (i.e., those who have completed the AMIkids Behavior Modification System training).

Building Assets--Reducing Risks (BARR)
[] Building Assets--Reducing Risks (BARR) is a multifaceted school-based prevention program designed to decrease the incidence of substance abuse (tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs), academic failure, truancy, and disciplinary incidents among 9th-grade youth. BARR encourages students to make healthy behavior choices and achieve academic success using a set of strategies that includes delivery of a manual-based class on social competency known as the "I-Time" curriculum. This curriculum consists of 33 sequential, 30-minute group activities delivered weekly throughout the school year by teachers and/or school staff. The curriculum includes 10 general content areas--building a connected community, goals, leadership, communication, assets, grief and loss, bullying, diversity, risky behavior, and dreams. Other program strategies include the early identification of youth at elevated risk for substance abuse and school failure and the appropriate referral of youth to strengths-based counseling interventions, both of which are achieved through weekly risk review meetings with the school's program coordinator, counselor, staff person overseeing discipline, and student services staff. Monthly teacher/staff meetings are also conducted. BARR relies on making strengths-based support interventions available during, after, and outside school, with ongoing mandated training for all 9th-grade teachers, administrators, and staff. Parental involvement in the program is encouraged through an orientation session for parents when their children start the 9th grade and a parent advisory group that meets periodically throughout the school year.
 * Building social competency by strengthening positive interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers/school staff
 * Increasing student engagement in the high school academic experience
 * Preventing substance abuse by reinforcing a "no use" message (i.e., any use of drugs is illegal, against school policy, and unhealthy for minors)

__** Capturing Kids' Hearts Teen Leadership Program **__ [] The Capturing Kids' Hearts Teen Leadership Program curriculum, which is based on social-cognitive learning theory, is made up of 50 lessons and includes role-play, group activities, presentations, and projects. Teachers present the lessons to students during 50- to 90-minute school health education classes over a period of one semester or an entire school year. The lessons help students to strengthen their school connectedness by enhancing protective factors and decreasing risk factors. Students also learn how to develop healthy relationships, handle peer pressure, build public speaking skills, make responsible decisions, resolve conflicts, and develop a sense of personal responsibility. Before implementing the intervention, teachers must successfully complete two trainings:
 * The Capturing Kids' Hearts Teacher Training, which instructs teachers how to model and teach relational and problem-solving skills, communicative competencies, concepts of citizenship, and consequential thinking. It also helps teachers to engage students, develop expectations for student behavior in the classroom, provide effective feedback, and identify and address conflicts.
 * The Teen Leadership Certification Workshop, which builds on the concepts presented in the first training and prepares teachers to implement the program curriculum with both middle and high school students.

__** Cool Kids Child and Adolescent Anxiety Management Program **__ [] The Cool Kids Child and Adolescent Anxiety Management Program (Cool Kids) treats anxiety disorders in children and adolescents ages 6-18 years. With a focus on teaching anxiety management skills, the manualized program includes sessions on identifying anxious thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (psychoeducation); challenging anxious thoughts (cognitive restructuring); approaching avoided situations/events (exposure); and using additional coping skills such as systematic problem solving, social skills, assertiveness skills, and effective strategies for dealing with teasing and bullying (coping skills). Cool Kids also helps the parent or other primary caretaker to support the child in the use of these new skills and to practice strategies for parenting an anxious child.

In clinical settings, the program is conducted in 10 individual or group sessions with both parent and child. During each session, the parent and child receive information on the topic being covered (i.e., treatment rationale, anxiety, understanding emotions, understanding the child's experience of anxiety) and then engage in experiential learning activities including discussion, modeling, role-play, and application of new skills to real-life situations. When the program is conducted in school settings, students attend the sessions during school time, and parents are offered information sessions as well as support through phone calls. Homework assignments following each session provide the opportunity to practice new skills. The program can be implemented by school counselors, psychologists, clinical psychologists, and other mental health care workers.

__** Peaceful Alternatives to Tough Situations (PATTS) **__ [] Peaceful Alternatives to Tough Situations (PATTS) is a school-based aggression management program designed to help students increase positive conflict resolution skills, increase the ability to forgive transgressions, and reduce aggressive behavior. PATTS features three separate curricula (for kindergarten through grade 2, grades 3 through 5, and middle and high school), each of which is delivered in nine weekly, 1-hour sessions. The program teaches cognitive skills, peer refusal skills, appropriate conflict resolution skills, identification and verbalization of emotions, recognition of anger cues, calming techniques, and forgiveness. Sessions are highly interactive and use group discussion, role-playing, games, and skills review. In addition, parents and teachers receive training informing them about the skills taught to students and encouraging them to support the use of the skills at home and in the classroom. PATTS is designed to be delivered by teachers, guidance counselors, and graduate or undergraduate mental health counselors.

__** Peer Assistance and Leadership (PAL) **__ [] Peer Assistance and Leadership (PAL) is a peer helping program that seeks to build resiliency in youth by pairing youth with peer helpers who receive training and support from teachers participating in the program. The peer-based assistance provided through PAL is designed to help youth avoid risk factors for substance use as well as other problems, such as low achievement in school, dropout, absenteeism, violence, teen pregnancy, and suicide. PAL peer helpers act as guides, tutors, mentors, and mediators to peers or younger students (PAL mentees) by utilizing skills learned through PAL, including cultural competency, effective communication, decisionmaking, higher order thinking, and resiliency building. PAL peer helpers are placed in helping roles with younger students from feeder campuses and peers from their own campus. Through a combination of leadership and assistance, they offer individual and group peer support, tutoring, welcoming and orientation of new students, assistance to students with special needs, classroom presentations, and school/community outreach projects. PAL mentees generally are referred to the program by a contact person at the service site because of concerns about the students' school performance (e.g., absences, tardiness, academic achievement) or personal or other problems. Students also can request to be referred to a PAL peer helper. PAL mentees are linked to specific peer helpers based on the needs of the PAL mentee and the skills and interests of the PAL peer helper.

Teachers recruit, train, monitor, and evaluate the performance of the PAL peer helpers. The PAL teacher's manuals (separate versions for high school and middle school) provide the foundation for teacher training, covering program orientation and the recruitment, selection, training, supervision, evaluation, and maintenance of student participants. An elementary advisor manual is available for educators serving elementary schools. The PAL student handbooks (separate versions for high school and middle school) provide instructions, worksheets, sample forms, and activities for peer helpers to use with their mentees.

Project MAGIC (Making A Group and Individual Commitment)
[] Project MAGIC (Making A Group and Individual Commitment) is an alternative to juvenile detention for first-time offenders between the ages of 12 and 18. The program's goals include helping youths achieve academic success; modifying attitudes about alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs; and enhancing life skills development and internal locus of control. Project MAGIC is based on the ecological model, involving individual, family, school, and community domains. Over the 2-month course of the program, separate interventions are provided to the youths and their parents, who are trained to better monitor their children's behavior: Facilitators collaborate with local agencies and other resources in the community to enhance a reciprocal investment by both the youth/parents and the community. The facilitators are usually members of the community where the program is going to be implemented and have at least a bachelor's degree as well as a background in teaching or experience working with at-risk youths.
 * The youth component consists of a 20-session skills-building curriculum offered to groups of 8-10 youths. The curriculum addresses substance abuse education, anger management, conflict management, problem solving/decisionmaking, communication, personal responsibility, values, stress reduction, and community service, which the youths are required to participate in as part of the program. The sessions (1.5 hours each) are held three times per week over 2 months and are conducted by a trained facilitator.
 * Parents participate in four 2.5-hour parent education meetings, during which parents and their children read and respond to preprinted activities designed to increase communication and family management. The meetings also offer an opportunity for parents to discuss mutual concerns regarding parenting, enhance their awareness of substance abuse issues, improve communication skills, and develop skills for monitoring their children's behavior. In the studies reviewed for this summary, the intervention also included a take-home component for parents who could not attend all four meetings because of work schedules; parents could complete lesson plans at home at their own pace.

__** Reconnecting Youth: A Peer Group Approach to Building Life Skills **__ [] Reconnecting Youth: A Peer Group Approach to Building Life Skills (RY) is a school-based prevention program for students ages 14-19 years that teaches skills to build resiliency against risk factors and control early signs of substance abuse and emotional distress. RY targets youth who demonstrate poor school achievement and high potential for school dropout. Eligible students must have either (1) fewer than the average number of credits earned for all students in their grade level at their school, high absenteeism, and a significant drop in grades during the prior semester or (2) a record of dropping out of school. Potential participants are identified using a school's computer records or are referred by school personnel if they show signs of any of the above risk factors. Eligible students may show signs of multiple problem behaviors, such as substance abuse, aggression, depression, or suicidal ideation.

RY also incorporates several social support mechanisms for participating youth: social and school bonding activities to improve teens' relationships and increase their repertoire of safe, healthy activities; development of a crisis response plan detailing the school system's suicide prevention approaches; and parent involvement, including active parental consent for their teen's participation and ongoing support of their teen's RY goals. The course curriculum is taught by an RY Leader, a member of the school staff or partnering agency who has abilities as a "natural helper," has healthy self-esteem, is motivated to work with high-risk youth, and is willing to comply with implementation requirements.

__** Ripple Effects Whole Spectrum Intervention System (Ripple Effects) **__ [] Ripple Effects Whole Spectrum Intervention System (Ripple Effects) is an interactive, software-based adaptive intervention for students that is designed to enhance social-emotional competencies and ultimately improve outcomes related to school achievement and failure, delinquency, substance abuse, and mental health. Two versions of the software are available: Ripple Effects for Kids (grades 2-5) and Ripple Effects for Teens (grades 6-10). The software presents students with peer-narrated tutorials that address social-emotional competencies (e.g., self-understanding, empathy, impulse control, emotional regulation, assertiveness, decisionmaking, connection to community), present science-based information about group-level risk factors, and give each student personalized guidance to address risk and protective factors specific to the student's environment and personal goals. Ripple Effects is customizable in terms of both content and process. The staff administering the program can preselect the content for students by choosing from an array of topics (140 for the kids' software and 390 for the teens' software) on the basis of the student population's needs and the goals being targeted. For example, staff might select social-emotional learning and character education sequences for universal mental health promotion and substance abuse prevention; bullying and bias activity prevention sequences for targeted prevention; or a sequence targeting defiant behavior and conduct problems. Students also may choose some topics for themselves. Topics can be explored in a multitude of ways (e.g., case studies, videos, factual information, photos/illustrations, journal writing exercises, quizzes) in any order depending on what is most compelling to individual students. Interactive profilers help students identify their social-emotional strengths and individual learning style and apply that knowledge as they use the software. The staff administering Ripple Effects use its core process components and built-in data management system to make sure students are logged in correctly, assign the tutorials, and track student progress. Program duration varies by setting. For example, the intervention could be used semiweekly over the school year as a universal course of positive youth development during the advisory period; as a one-semester course to prevent academic failure in a classroom, computer lab, or ad hoc setting for high-risk students; or as a single, 45-minute session for students with first-time behavior offenses in detention or counseling settings. Any staff member can administer the program because no specific content expertise is required. However, 3 hours of staff training to plan program adaptation for site- or student-specific requirements are recommended. The training can be delivered in person by the developer, or staff can complete the training through self-directed use of the Ripple Effects for Staff software.

__** SANKOFA Youth Violence Prevention Program **__ [] The SANKOFA Youth Violence Prevention Program is a strengths-based, culturally tailored preventive intervention for African American adolescents ages 13-19. The goal of the school-based intervention is to equip youth with the knowledge, attitudes, skills, confidence, and motivation to minimize their risk for involvement in violence, victimization owing to violence, and other negative behaviors, such as alcohol and other drug use. The intervention promotes resilience and survival in difficult and even life-threatening situations. SANKOFA, a word of African origin, means "looking back in order to move forward," and traditional African values of consciousness, caring, connectedness, character, competency, commitment, and courage are basic tenets of the intervention, which is guided by an ecological framework and the theory of planned behavior. The intervention includes an adolescent curriculum and an optional parent curriculum: The intervention includes didactic instruction, demonstration, experiential exercises, case studies, games, group discussion, small group activities, role-play, performance feedback, and multimedia. To deliver the intervention, facilitators must have completed training and should have prior experience working with youth and at least an associate degree (or its equivalent). The study reviewed for this summary assessed only the adolescent curriculum, using 60-minute sessions, without the booster modules. Although the intervention is designed for the specific challenges and context of African American youth, the study reviewed also included Latino and White youth.
 * The adolescent curriculum (24 modules and 3 booster modules) addresses goals and values; reasons for fighting and carrying and using weapons; stereotypes, beliefs, and attitudes that render one at risk for violence-related injury and death; responsibility to self, family, and community; stages of conflict escalation; strengthening of internal locus of control; exercising of choices; risk assessment; motivation to use nonviolent conflict resolution; and strategies, as well as mental and behavioral rehearsals, for nonviolent conflict resolution. The curriculum is designed to be compatible with an existing school curriculum, and modules are available in formats suitable for 45-, 60-, or 80-minute class periods. The length of the implementation schedule depends on the number of curriculum modules taught per week.
 * The parent curriculum (4 modules) emphasizes adolescents' concern with violence, provides an overview of the adolescent curriculum's key concepts, and asks parents to examine their personal beliefs and attitudes regarding violence. The curriculum also emphasizes the importance of positive parent-child interactions and offers practical strategies for reinforcing violence prevention skills (e.g., role modeling, stress and anger management).

__**Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS) Intervention Guide**__ [] The new SSIS™ (Social Skills Improvement System) Intervention Guide is designed to help you plan and implement remediation strategies that are directly tied to problems identified by the SSIS Rating Scales. Because the SSIS Intervention Guide is highly coordinated with the SSIS Rating Scales, this dynamic intervention program enables you to conduct meaningful pre-treatment and post-treatment assessments and be confident that your decisions are reliable and your documentaiton of changes is accurate. The revised guide provides units that follow a step-by-step teaching model addressing: In addition to the 20 instructional units, the SSIS Intervention Guide provides many optional intervention strategies, resources that support instruction, and tools to monitor program effectiveness and student progress. The resource disc that accompanies the guide includes: Skill Cue Cards, Notes to Parents, Letters to Parents (Consent Form, Overview Letter, Completion Letter, Follow up Letter, Classwide Notification), Progress Forms, Intervention Integrity Forms, Certificates of Completion, Video and Video Clip Index.
 * Communication (2 units)
 * Cooperation (3 units)
 * Assertion (3 units)
 * Responsibility (3 units)
 * Empathy (2 units)
 * Engagement (3 units)
 * Self-control (4 units)
 * Administration Materials**

__** Teaching Kids to Cope (TKC) **__ [] Teaching Kids to Cope (TKC) is a cognitive-behavioral health education program, based on stress and coping theory, for adolescents ages 12-18 with depressive symptomatology and/or suicidal ideation. This group treatment program teaches adolescents a range of skills designed to improve their coping with stressful life events and decrease their depressive symptoms. Participants are guided through a process to discover their distorted thinking patterns and to test their thinking against reality using suggested approaches. They also explore and practice problem identification, alternate ways of viewing a situation, and alternate ways of reacting. During each group session, adolescents are first provided with information on topics such as common teen stressors, self-image, coping, family relationships, and communication. In the second portion of each session, they participate in experiential learning, identifying their problems and engaging in concrete problem-solving tasks. Activities also include group discussion, role-play, group projects, and the use of worksheets, handouts, films, and audiotapes. Homework assignments provide an opportunity for the adolescents to practice using new skills. Ten 1-hour group sessions are delivered weekly by a professional with a bachelor's degree in education, social work, child development, nursing, psychology, or other health-related field, and 1 year of experience working with children or adolescents.

__** The Leadership Program's Violence Prevention Project (VPP) **__ [] The Leadership Program's Violence Prevention Project (VPP) is a school-based intervention for early and middle adolescents. VPP is designed to prevent conflict and violence by improving conflict resolution skills, altering norms about using aggression and violence (including lowering tolerance for violence), and improving behavior in the school and community. VPP lessons, taught in the classroom, are based on the experiential learning cycle, an interactive, learner-centered approach that encourages participation, communication, and group work. A trained facilitator guides students through options for conflict resolution and aids them in broadening their adoption of conflict resolution strategies through the use of improved communication skills (e.g., active listening, I-messages). The aim is to reduce students' use of verbally aggressive, physically aggressive, and antisocial conflict resolution strategies and to increase their use of prosocial verbal and other nonaggressive conflict resolution strategies. VPP also targets elements of the classroom environment in which conflict occurs, such as peer relationships and normative beliefs about aggressive behavior. The intervention includes core components for both middle and high school students, including introduction to leadership, vision and imagination, and conflict management. In addition, middle school students receive self-affirmation and cooperation components, and high school students receive self-concept, group dynamics, and social responsibility components. The program concludes with an arts-based final project cooperatively created by all members of each class. The facilitator implements 12 weekly lessons following the written curriculum, with lessons in the core components adapted to meet participant and school needs. Each 45-minute lesson includes an icebreaker or other team-building exercise; the main activity, which involves the whole group or small groups participating in role-plays, trust games, cooperative work, or a group discussion; and a closing to reflect on the day's activities.

Trauma Affect Regulation: Guide for Education and Therapy (TARGET)
[] Trauma Affect Regulation: Guide for Education and Therapy (TARGET) is a strengths-based approach to education and therapy for survivors of physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional trauma. TARGET teaches a set of seven skills (summarized by the acronym FREEDOM--Focus, Recognize triggers, Emotion self-check, Evaluate thoughts, Define goals, Options, and Make a contribution) that can be used by trauma survivors to regulate extreme emotion states, manage intrusive trauma memories, promote self-efficacy, and achieve lasting recovery from trauma. TARGET can be adapted to assist men and women from various age groups, cultures, and ethnicities who have had a variety of traumatic experiences. This program can be offered in 10-12 individual or group counseling or psychoeducational sessions conducted by trained implementers (e.g., clinicians, case managers, rehabilitation specialists, teachers). In the studies reviewed for this summary, TARGET was implemented with adults in outpatient substance abuse treatment clinics (through 8 or 9 weekly sessions), with adult mothers of children under age 5 recruited from residential and community settings (through 12 weekly sessions), and with adolescents in juvenile detention facilities (through 1-4 sessions within the first 2 weeks of detention and up to 10 sessions for adolescents with extended stays).