Our program consists of the following groups:
Anxiety Skills Group for Adolescents
These skill-based groups provide treatment for patients (9th - 12th grades) who experience difficulty with anxiety in a number of areas (e.g., social, health, academic, and generalized anxiety). Group goals include: 1. Improving skills to cope with physiological symptoms and anxious thoughts, 2. Reducing distress and avoidance of anxiety provoking situations, and 3. Practicing strategies to successfully engage in anxiety provoking situations.
Brave Together: Healing Through Awareness and Connection
This group, which include skills training, processing, and support, is designed to help families and teens (9th-12th grades) deepen their understanding of how past experiences may affect emotional and physical well-being. Group goals include: 1. Recognizing signs of stress and trauma, 2. Encouraging acquisition and utilization of effective coping strategies, and 3. Helping patients and families identify community resources and build stronger support systems. The group offers an opportunity for reflection, growth, and empowerment through shared healing.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills Groups
These skill-based groups provide treatment for patients (6th - 12th grades) who present concerns related to depression, social withdrawal, anxiety, irritability, self-injury (e.g. cutting), risk-taking, impulsivity, and relationship difficulties. Group goals include: 1. Improving coping skills to regulate emotions and behaviors, 2. Strengthening the parent-child relationship, and 3. Increasing interpersonal effectiveness.
Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills Group for Children and Adolescents
These skill-based groups provide treatment for patients (3rd – 12th grades) who experience difficulty interacting with others. Group goals include: 1. Building basic behavioral and cognitive social skills, 2. Reinforcing prosocial attitudes and behaviors, and 3. Promoting adaptive coping strategies for social situations.
Mindful Parenting Group
In the Mindful Parenting group, parents learn to apply mindfulness-based skills to themselves and to their experience of parenting their children to help them to parent with fuller awareness and slow down their automatic reactions. When we become aware of these automatic reactions, we can choose to respond differently, in more effective ways. Parents will learn both formal mindfulnessbased practices, such as meditations and yoga, as well as learn mindfulness of everyday activities, with a focus on day-to-day parenting and family activities. Most families will find the group helpful with: reducing their parenting stress, improving their relationship with their child, parenting more effectively or less impulsively, and/or helping their child be calmer or better regulated.
Parent-Teen Group for Academic Success
These skill-based groups provide treatment for teen patients (8th - 12th grades) who experience executive functioning difficulties and their parents. This group helps teens develop skills and consistency that promote success at school and home by incorporating organization skills and strategies from the Supporting Teens’ Autonomy Daily (STAND) manual. Group goals include: 1. Helping families build partnerships, 2. Developing independence in teens, and 3. Promoting problem-solving techniques that address the challenge of technology use in schools.
Teen Support Group
This structured social support group provides support for teens as they navigate typical adolescent identity development (9th - 12th grade). This group provides skills-based learning and discusses topics of interest including: 1. Managing identity related stressors, 2. Use of social media, 3. Impact of family relationships, 4. Exploration of other life issues. These groups include parent-only sessions, psychoeducation on relevant topics, and also highlights community resources.
For More Information
If you have any questions, need additional information, or would like to provide a referral, please call Kennedy Krieger's Psychology intake team at (443) 923-7508 and reference the Child and Family Therapy Clinic group therapy program. If you are a Kennedy Krieger provider and would like to make a referral, please email cftgroups@KennedyKrieger.org.