Managing Anxiety: CBT Based School Counseling Game for Worry

A cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) game for small group counseling or individual counseling focused on helping students learn CBT strategies to manage worry. This game teaches elementary students key skills such as identifying triggers, negative thoughts, helpful coping skills, and the impact of their behavior.

What You Get

• 60 age-typical scenario cards for excessive worry.
• The scenarios include general anxiety, phobias, separation anxiety, and social anxiety. They do not include scenarios involving obsessions or compulsions.
• Brief pre/post assessments to gather data about student skills.
• Game directions and additional game materials: answer slips, secret envelop label
• Student answer recording sheet
• Supplemental CBT think-feel-act map to explore student perspectives further
• The Helper Squad Character cards and posters. See more about the characters below.

Details

Perfect for school counselors, school psychologists, and school social workers looking for CBT-based counseling materials that grow students' social-emotional skills.

How Should I Use It?

You can use The Helper Squad Counseling Game as a group counseling game or 1:1 with a student. You can use the game cards as task cards during individual counseling sessions.

The Helper Squad

The Helper Squad game came to life because I always struggled to find counseling materials that incorporated both CBT and social-emotional learning. I needed materials that were flexible and reusable. Most importantly, I wanted materials that my students connected to and used even when they were struggling. 

The 5 Members of the Helper Squad 

1. Chief Emotion Officer helps us identify how we are feeling, how strong our feelings are, what triggers certain feelings, and when a feeling may get too big to handle.
2. Doctor Positive helps us change negative thoughts by using facts for our thinking. Realistic, positive thinking is her goal!
3. Coping Captain helps us use coping strategies when we are overwhelmed. He teaches us ways to calm down and makes sure we prepared when tough situations are ahead.
4. Impact Inspector helps us understand how our actions affect others. She shows us how to see the situation from other perspectives and see if different choices would have led to a better outcome.
5. Fantastic Fix-It helps us find ways to solve problems and make a situation better. He helps us apologize and come up with real solutions.

Meet The Helper Squad!