Anxiety Group for Children

Anxiety Group for Children (AGC) is a group program that uses a cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) approach for the reduction of anxiety symptoms. There is a vast amount of literature supporting the use of CBT to manage children’s anxiety, resulting in CBT being the best practice for the management of this disorder.

The overall goal is to provide children with the skills for them to be able to successfully cope in various anxiety-provoking situations. The treatment goals are:

• Helping children to recognize signs of anxious arousal and to use these as cues for the use of anxiety management strategies
• Encourage children to identify negative self-statements to initiate more positive and constructive self-statements
• Helping children to use self-ratings and self-rewards
• Identifying the cognitive processes associated with excessive anxious arousal
• Training in cognitive strategies for anxiety management and behavioural relaxation
• Performance-based practice opportunities with learned skills applied to real-life situations
• Provide parents with the knowledge and skills needed to support their child in coping with anxiety

Our 11-week program schedule covers:

• Welcome to Group
• When I Worry
• Time Spent Worrying
• What Worry Does to My Body
• The Mind-Body Connections
• More Mind-Body Connections (con’td)
• Alarm Chain Reaction
• Introduction to Exposure
• Practicing Exposure and Making Movies
• Practicing Exposure and Making Movies
• Graduation & Celebration