title: With a little help from FUN FRIENDS young children can overcome anxiety.
abstract: This paper highlights resilience as a key concept when working with young children to improve their emotional wellbeing and reduce anxieties. Supporting children aged 4-7 years with anxiety is a significant area of advancement in terms of therapeutic approaches over the last decade. This paper outlines one such approach that was implemented within a Tier 2 Community Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) within the northern region of England to determine whether findings from Australian studies could be replicated in the UK. A pilot study was undertaken with a group of young children aged 4-7 years old with symptoms of anxiety. All of the children had been referred to the service because of anxiety related issues, such as social phobia, generalised anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. They received a group intervention, FUN FRIENDS, over a period of 12 weeks. By enabling the children to become more self-sufficient this allowed greater emotional and social skills development. All the children demonstrated improved anxiety scores post intervention, as measured by the Spence Child Anxiety Scale.
authors.forename: Donna A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Carlyle
mesh_terms: D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D003156:Community Mental Health Services / Q000379:methods*; D061345:Early Medical Intervention / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D033062:Friends; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010865:Pilot Projects; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012649:Self Concept; D012920:Social Behavior Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D006113:United Kingdom