Development of a Brief Group CBT Intervention to Reduce COVID-19 Related Distress Among School-Age Youth

Abstract

School-aged youth have been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects of the pandemic will likely have long-standing effects on the well-being of youth, and access to mental health care is even more critical during this time. For the past 5 years, TRAILS ( Transforming Research into Action to Improve the Lives of Students) has been working throughout the state to increase utilization of evidence-based mental health practices among K-12 school mental health professionals (SMHPs). By leveraging SMHPs who are widely accessible to students, TRAILS seeks to improve youth access to effective mental health care and reduce current mental health inequities. In March 2020, TRAILS responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by developing a group manual designed to be delivered virtually by SMHPs to help students develop effective coping skills to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. TRAILS focuses on promoting use of CBT and mindfulness, as these skills are ideally suited for school-based delivery, and thus the new manual, Coping with COVID-19 (CC-19), was grounded in these modalities. This article will describe the design, development, and deployment of the CC-19 program to address the mental health needs of students in the context of the pandemic. Early acceptability and penetration data will also be discussed.

COVID-19 Infection among Family and Friends: The Psychological Impact on Non-Infected Persons

“…In response, federal and statewide efforts are underway to increase awareness about mental illness and the importance of obtaining help for psychological stress (e.g., online resources from government agencies) [ 34 , 35 ]. Additional initiatives and interventions are being explored by regional professional organizations, community-based agencies, worksites, and schools [ 33 , 34 , 36 , 37 ]. Experts have also made recommendations on bereavement services, grief counseling, coping with stress during public health emergencies, trauma-informed approaches to public mental health promotion, and best practices for healthcare workers who deal with psychological distress among patients and their relatives [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 38 , 39 , 40 ].…”

Mental health needs in a large urban school district: Findings from a web‐based survey

“…Given survey findings that indicated an overwhelming interest in identifying effective strategies for helping students cope with depression, anxiety, trauma, and PTSD, the second priority was building school mental health professional expertise in evidence‐based mental health care approaches . In response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, the team provided training to approximately 250 DPSCD counselors, social workers, and others in the Coping with COVID‐19 (CC‐19) program, 61 a skills‐based CBT and mindfulness group intervention designed to address COVID‐related mental health concerns. DPSCD staff subsequently delivered ~250 student individual or group sessions during the 2020–2021 school year.…”

Digital and Hybrid Pediatric and Youth Mental Health Program Implementation Challenges During the Pandemic: Literature Review With a Knowledge Translation and Theoretical Lens Analysis

“…Most of the articles explicitly described that the study was implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic in their titles [9,[19][20][21][22]24,[26][27][28]30,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]44]. Others discussed their study relevance in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic in the abstract or main text [9,23,29,31,38,39].…”

“…Therefore, adequate knowledge dissemination on the use of digital health technology and its successful implementation through gaining interviewing skills and providing sufficient engagement for children and youth across diverse service providers is needed. Overall, most of the studies that assessed acceptability and feasibility found that digital health and tele-mental health were viewed positively and there was a high uptake by youth during the pandemic [20,24,32,34,41,77]. The cross-sectional survey involving a needs assessment from the Transforming Research Into Action to Improve the Lives of Students implementation study (N=982 school-based health professionals who were trained) found that school-based mental health professionals were satisfied with the web-based manual that disseminated knowledge on youth coping skills [41].…”