Our contribution to a therapy concept for first crisis interventions and stabilization of highly stressed children, adolescents and minor refugees.
“I am very grateful that DESIGN-IT supports our therapy concept with this app – an important tool to keep participants committed!”
START was created by Andrea Dixius in collaboration with Prof. Dr. med. Eva Möhler. It was developed with the central aim of initial stabilization for children and adolescents who are emotionally and mentally severely burdened as well as for underage refugees.
A daily challenge for child and adolescent psychiatric and psychotherapeutic practice, as well as for youth welfare services, are adolescents from unstable psychosocial contexts in acute crises, with sometimes severe emotional dysregulation or fluctuating therapy motivation on the background of massive stress.
The START Manual consists of five modules (double lessons) – in groups and / or individual settings, the children and adolescents are taught skills in stress regulation, emotional stabilization and dealing with nightmares.
START offers a low-threshold approach and is designed primarily for cultural integration.
The team around Andrea Dixius is looking for an approach to keep participants committed once the workshop ended. Participants should have a tool available to practice methods learned in the START workshop. Ideally the participants should be reminded to assess their level of stress / tension. Or in case their has been an incident of high stress a follow-up should be triggered.
More information on the program available here: https://www.startyourway.de/.
The START (Stress-Traumasymptoms-Arousal-Regulation-Treatment) therapy concept is meant for workshop participants that want to apply the learned techniques, whenever and wherever needed.
DESIGN-IT developed a platform independent app with a focus on continuing treatment outside the sessions with experts: The app continuously asks participants to self-assess their current emotion and level of stress. Based on the participants preferences and current stress level, the app suggest a set of “skills” to reduce the level of stress.
Skills are exercises / activities which have proven helpful to redeuce stress levels. This can be anything from biting a lemon to playing basketball and is very individual.
Negative emotions and stress cannot be wiped away. But exercising a set of skills can help to release stress in difficult situations. The app provides a simply tool to practise the methods and behavioral patterns.
The START project was done “pro bono publico”.
We are happy if people or institutions want to contribute financially or with expert knowledge to ensure the continued support and development of the project.
For further details please contact us and / or Andrea Dixius.