1 - (SYM 119) Free Bite-sized CBT Digital Lessons to Promote Youth Wellbeing During COVID-19 from the National Academies and CDC

The impacts of COVID-19 are broad and include increased anxiety, stress and depression among children and adolescents (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2021; Racine et al., 2021). In response to concerns about the mental health toll of COVID-19 on our nation’s youth, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Board on Children, Youth, and Families brought together a group of experts to design digital tools to help school-aged youth cope with the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic and everyday challenges. This project, which was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the first project the National Academies has undertaken to create tools intended for children and youth. The overarching goal was to develop free, “bite-sized,” evidence-informed, web-based resources focused on building cognitive-behavioral skills for coping with anxiety and stress among children, youth, and families. The result was a set of graphic-novel style instructional documents and videos, termed microlearnings, to promote emotional wellbeing for youth. There are instructional videos in English and Spanish for deep breathing, increasing favorite activities, cognitive restructuring (part I and II), and mindfulness. These materials are freely available to the public for use and distribution.

This presentation will provide a demonstration of the microlearnings and describe how academic scientists, practicing clinical psychologists, stakeholders, and family advocates collaborated to develop products that are grounded in the evidence base, culturally-sensitive, gender-inclusive and representative of today’s children and youth. The decision-making process with respect to use of gender-neutral language, identity and cultural representation in the materials, adaptation for Spanish speakers, and dissemination to a wide audience will be described.

Since the launch of the website in September 2021 through the end of February 2023, there have been more than 194,967 unique page views of the site, with about 50% of the total page views coming from international visitors. Preliminary results from a pilot study exploring the effectiveness, acceptability and feasibility of these tools with parents and their children ages 9-14 years old will be shared. Results from efforts implementing the microlearnings in pediatric settings will also be presented.