Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress (SPARCS)

Description
Experts
Expert Contributions
Featured Books for Sale

In the News
Additional Resources
Coming Later
Contributors

Description

SPARCS is a present-focused, 16-session manually guided group treatment. It is specifically designed to improve the emotional, social, academic, and behavioral functioning of adolescents exposed to chronic interpersonal trauma (such as ongoing physical abuse) and/or separate types of trauma (e.g., community violence, sexual assault). The curriculum was designed to address the needs of adolescents who may still be living with ongoing stress and may be experiencing problems in several areas of functioning. This can includes difficulties with affect regulation and impulsivity, self-perception, relationships, somatization, dissociation, numbing and avoidance, and struggles with their own purpose and meaning in life, as well as worldviews that make it difficult for them to see a future for themselves. The curriculum, which draws from the core components of complex trauma treatment, incorporates techniques from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Trauma and Grief Components Therapy (TGCT), and early versions of Trauma Adaptive Recovery Group Education and Therapy (TARGET). These techniques are utilized with participants throughout many of the group sessions.

https://www.cebc4cw.org/program/structured-psychotherapy-for-adolescents-responding-to-chronic-stress/detailed

https://www.nctsn.org/interventions/structured-psychotherapy-adolescents-responding-chronic-stress

http://promising.futureswithoutviolence.org/?program=structured-psychotherapy-for-adolescents-responding-to-chronic-stress-sparcs

https://qic-ag.org/logs/structured-psychotherapy-for-adolescents-responding-to-chronic-stress-sparcs/