Core Components

Adolescent Coping with Depression (CWD-A) is a group based psychoeducational, cognitive-behavioural intervention that targets specific problems typically experienced by depressed adolescents aged 14-18 years, including discomfort and anxiety, irrational or negative thoughts, poor social skills and limited experiences of pleasant activities. CWD-A aims to reduce current depressive symptoms, support remission from current depressive disorders and improve psychosocial functioning. The programme is delivered by trained mental health professionals and comprises 16, two-hour sessions, undertaken twice per week over 8 weeks for mixed gender groups of up to 10 adolescents. The programme is typically delivered as an after-school programme, in outpatient clinics or in community-based services.

The intervention is clearly operationalised with a well-structured detailed Leader's Manual which provides scripted lesson plans for each session and a Student Workbook which is also comprehensive and integrated with the lesson plans in the Leader's Manual. The workbook contains brief readings, structured learning tasks, self-monitoring forms, homework assignments, and short quizzes. Topics covered in the sessions include (1) Mood Monitoring (2) Social Skills (3) Pleasant Activities (4) Relaxation (5) Constructive Thinking (6) Communication (7) Negotiation and Problem Solving and, (8) Life Planning and Maintaining Gains using several different teaching methods such as lectures, discussions, role-playing exercises and homework assignments.

The parents of the adolescents are encouraged to participate in the programme to help foster and maintain positive changes in the adolescents' moods. An adjunct parent programme is available to support this which comprises of nine, 2-hour sessions held weekly on the same night as the adolescent group. Parents are given an overview of the skills and techniques that are taught to their adolescents to promote parental acceptance and reinforcement of their teenagers’ positive changes. Most of the sessions are delivered separately, however, two of the sessions which focus on practising problem solving and negotiations skills are undertaken jointly.

Fidelity

CWD-A follows a structured format and in order to effectively replicate the programme CWD-A requires:
1) Training of group leaders
2) Adoption of a CWD-A therapist manual (Group Leaders) to ensure protocol Adherence
3) Review of sessions adherence and general competence using general competence rating scales
4) Supervisor review of video/audio recordings
5) Implementation of the CWD-A workbook for adolescents or parents available.

Modifiable Components

CWD-A is designed to be delivered to groups of adolescents, other variations are possible depending upon the situation and related goals. With some modification, the course can be used on an individual basis with depressed adolescents and/or in conjunction with other types of treatment (e.g., individual psychotherapy, medications, etc.), with special populations such as adolescents with serious reading problems, or with nondepressed teenagers as a preventive programme.