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 has been used with students from 5th grade through 12th grade who have witnessed or experienced traumatic life events such as community and school violence, accidents and injuries, physical abuse and domestic violence, and natural and human-made disasters. CBITS uses cognitive-behavioral techniques (e.g., psychoeducation, relaxation, social problem solving, cognitive restructuring, and exposure).
Author Archives: Lori DeLay
Healthy Environments and Response to Trauma in Schools (HEARTS)
The UCSF HEARTS project is a comprehensive, multilevel school-based prevention and intervention program for children who have experienced trauma. The goal of UCSF HEARTS is to create school environments that are more trauma-sensitive and supportive of the needs of traumatized children. A main objective of this project is to work collaboratively with a School District to promote school success by decreasing trauma-related difficulties and increasing healthy functioning in students within the school district who have experienced complex trauma. Trauma-sensitive school environments will likely benefit not only traumatized children, but also those who are affected by these children, including child peers and school personnel. Founders of UCSF HEARTS: Joyce Dorado, Ph.D. Project Director, Assistant Clinical Professor, UCSF-SFUSD HEARTS, and Lynn Dolce, MFT, and Miriam Martinez, PhD.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an empirically supported treatment designed to help people manage overwhelming feelings and self-defeating behaviors. These feelings and behaviors may create major challenges in life (such as angry outbursts, violence, depression, immobility and avoidance by suicide attempts, substance abuse, and eating disorders). DBT encompasses core modules of mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness skills training. The emphasis is on building and enhancing skills to regulate emotions, deal with the distressing situations, and improve relationships. DBT was invented by Dr. Marsha Linehan, a psychologist, who used her own insights from living successfully with Borderline Personality Disorder to develop this novel therapy. In its standard form, there are four components of DBT: skills training group, individual treatment, DBT phone coaching, and consultation team.
Trauma Center-Justice Resource Institute
DBT Fact Sheet – NAMI
Trauma Systems Therapy (TST)
TST is a comprehensive, phase-based treatment program for children and adolescents who have experienced traumatic events and/or who live in environments with ongoing traumatic stress. TST is designed to address the complicated needs of a trauma system, which is defined as the combination of a traumatized child/adolescent who, when exposed to trauma reminders, has difficulty regulating his/her emotions and behavior and his/her caregiver/system of care who is not able to adequately protect the youth or help him/her to manage this dysregulation. The most common setting in which TST is implemented is for youth in child welfare who can be in birth homes, foster care, residential treatment centers, community-based prevention programs, and programs for unaccompanied refugee minors. There is an emphasis on involvement of the caregiver as being essential to success. TST was developed by Dr. Saxe and Dr. Heidi Ellis at Boston University School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Boston. The materials are available in Spanish and Korean.