During my internship at CPC, I had the opportunity to observe and interact in adolescent Girls IOP group therapy. The group sessions are focused on addressing substance abuse and mental health disorders to focus on a positive treatment. Every person has their own set of needs and goals but the girls share their goals and talk about anything in their life that they may want to discuss. The therapists use a no judgment policy and create a safe space to talk while maintaining open communication. I was able to see how meaningful the group sessions were for the girls and allowed them to make new and healthy improvement towards the recovery process.

      The group sessions are maintained by doing different activities, talking, or watching films as part of the therapy process. I started thinking about ways that I could contribute to the weekly group sessions and help make a difference with the girls. I immediately began to research different methods that could help with the treatment process while making it enjoyable. I focused on creating an activity based on mindfulness. Mindfulness is all about being in the moment and observing your thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness is proven to help the healing process with reducing stress, anxiety, helping memory, focus, and increasing well-being. Although mindfulness sounds easy it is actually very challenging to get someone to focus only on where there are now.

      I created two mindfulness activities for the girls to achieve during group session. My goal is that these activities will help them develop more self-acceptance and compassion for themselves and others. I brought in M&Ms and starbursts and depending on which color they pick out, there is a question to go with it. An example would be if they picked out a red starburst from the bag then they would say 3 traits to describe themselves. The goal of the activity is to focus on building trust within the group by getting the girls to open up and share goals or information about themselves. The other mindfulness activity that I created is a magazine collage activity. The girls used poster board and found pictures or words in different magazines that either inspired them or described who they are. They shared their poster when they were done with the group and explained what it meant to them. My hope with this activity was that they could reduce stress with a fun activity to learn more about connecting with themselves. I attached pictures of what the activities looked like so I hope they provide a better understanding of the activities :)

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