Child and Adolescent Outpatient Groups

Group Members will have the opportunity to become familiar with the concept of Mindfulness to help them recognize where they can implement changes in their lives and utilize coping skills to improve daily living. Participants will engage in activities that encourage emotion exploration, creativity, problem solving, movement, regulating emotions and a variety of social skills.

Group Members will learn and apply Core Mindfulness. Group members will have the opportunity to process times in which these skills were both effective and ineffective or times in which these skills could have potentially been used.

Members of the group will gain such skills as Validation, Radical Acceptance, What/How skills of Mindfulness, Problem Solving and various Interpersonal Effectiveness skills. Common issues discussed will include social media, peer relationships, self-care, community involvement, what role you play in the working field, responsibility, leadership at home, empathy and goal setting.

Group Members will learn how to apply interpersonal effectiveness skills to increase their ability to understand and maintain healthy relationships and increase effective communication and self-respect.

Members of the group will learn the five steps of emotional self-regulation “I am, I calm, I feel, I choose and I solve.” They will be able to recognize when they have been triggered and take themselves to a safe place. They will learn how to calm themselves down enough to identify the feelings they are experiencing. They will learn the three R’s “regulate, relate and reason.” Common issues to be discussed will be parent child relationships, bullying, anxiety, depression, cognitive distortions and returning to school. Group Members will have time to process their feelings.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ+) community struggle with not only their own mental health, but also with being discriminated for their sexual orientation and identity. These circumstances lead to higher levels of depression, anxiety, PTSD and thoughts of self-harm. This group will be member driven and provide an environment in which the group members can be seen and heard. Topics include education, tolerance, acceptance, positive self-talk, equality and advocacy.

Parents will be able to process their feelings while navigating through the mental health system. They will be given insight from other parents on how to engage their children while working through this process. Therapists will lead processing group and introduce executive functioning and family system skills.