Iowa BEST: Behavioral, Equitable, Social-Emotional, Trauma-Informed Health in Sc

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based treatment approach that was originally designed for adults and has been adapted into a manualized treatment program for adolescents. The DBT Skills training provides a group-based approach to instructing teenagers in the use of mindfulness and development of coping skills for tolerating emotionally distressing situations, learning emotion regulation, and improving interpersonal effectiveness (1,2) . Over the past five years, an ongoing collaboration between the UIHC Department of Psychiatry and the Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD) has resulted in the implementation of a school-based Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)-informed model of care. The model involves UIHC staff trained in DBT providing direct training, consultation, and support to general and special education teachers and school social workers on how to teach the DBT Skills to teens in the classroom. In the 2021-22 academic year, the program is training its 4th cohort of school staff in the model. The implementation model involves consideration of support at all levels of the MTSS, and aims to build a sustainable district-wide program which provides a common language for understanding and addressing emotions and interpersonal relationships among school staff and students.