Evaluating the real-world effectiveness of a Cognitive Behavior Therapy-based transdiagnostic programme for emotional problems in children and adolescents

Anxiety and depression are common among children and adolescents, which when left untreated often tend to have a negative course and outcome. Given the long term negative impact of anxiety and depression, considerable effort has been devoted to developing intervention programmes for these disorders. Of these interventions, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is the intervention of choice for anxiety and depression with well-controlled efficacy studies conducted in research settings reporting that up to 65% of children and adolescents responded positively to CBT. However, concern has been raised about the generalizability of findings of previous studies and transportability of CBT-based prevention programme to regular school settings when delivered by school staff with a range of skills and experience (i.e., social workers, counselors, teachers, therapists). In this presentation, I will share some of the experience of implementing our CBT-based transdiagnostic programme (Super Skills for Life) at a state-level, working with major stakeholders.

Cecilia A. Essau is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology and the Director of Centre for Applied Research and Assessment in Child and Adolescent Wellbeing (CARACAW) at the University of Roehampton, UK. She has held a number of academic positions in Canadian (Lakehead University), Austrian (Karl-Franzens University Graz), and German (Max-Planck Institute of Psychiatry, University of Konstanz, University of Bremen, Technical University Braunschweig, University of Muenster) universities before joining the University of Roehampton in 2004 as a Professor of Developmental Psychopathology. With research grants from numerous national and international institutions, her research has focused on understanding the interacting factors that can lead children and adolescents to have serious emotional and behavioural problems and using this research to (a) enhance the assessment of childhood and adolescent psychopathology and (b) design more effective interventions to prevent and treat such problems. Prof Essau is the author of over 220 articles, and is the author/editor of 19 books in the area of youth mental health. She has been invited lecturer at numerous national and international conferences.