Through a series of brief, easy-to-follow sessions, complete with skills-building activities, the evidence-based COPE Programs convey that there is hope for change, and that both depression and anxiety are treatable.

COPE recognizes that we can’t control trigger events, but we can control how we think about them and our our responses to them. The COPE Programs teach children, teens, young adults and adults how to recognize and stop automatic negative or unhelpful thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts. The result is feeling emotionally better and behaving in healthier ways.

The Creative Coping Toolkit (CCT) is a year-long film-based program that educates students on complex topics and includes empowering strategies and practical tips on supporting positive behavioral health by addressing anxiety, online safety, bullying, loneliness, addiction, help-seeking behavior, resilience, connection, and belonging. CCT is designed to be highly adaptable, with a modular structure that allows educators to customize lessons based on their classroom needs. The core program includes 6-10 flexible lessons per theme, depending on the selected film (Angst, LIKE, The Upstanders, or Race to Be Human), along with a range of supplemental materials such as quick-start guides, discussion prompts, mindfulness activities, and reflection exercises. Additional resources can be layered in or adjusted to meet the specific social-emotional and mental health goals of a school or district.

Skills Training for Emotional Problem Solving for Adolescents (DBT STEPS-A). Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills have been demonstrated to be effective in helping adolescents manage difficult emotional situations, cope with stress, and make better decisions. From leading experts in DBT and school-based interventions, this unique manual offers the first nonclinical application of DBT skills. The book presents an innovative social-emotional learning curriculum designed to be taught by general education teachers or other school personnel in grades 6-12. Explicit instructions for teaching the skills—mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness—are provided in 30 lesson plans, complete with numerous reproducibles: 99 handouts, a diary card, and three student tests.

Additional outcomes:

Decreased anxiety

EduGuide provides lesson-based and organizational approaches to SEL. It includes programming for grades 4-12 and demonstrates evidence of effectiveness at grades 5-7. Additionally, the lesson-based portion of EduGuide is facilitated largely online with guidance for bringings topics from lessons into classroom discussion. Translated materials are available in Arabic, Burmese, Chinese, French, German, Nepali, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese.

Level III: Depression Education & Suicide Awareness provides a deeper discussion about depression and suicide for grade 8-12 students along with a focus on help-seeking and good mental health. The full program has four lessons. The fourth lesson is a skills check as the program meets National Health Education Standards. A condensed one-day lesson is also available.

Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO) provides a lesson-based approach to SEL with academic integration with social studies. It includes programming for grades 6-12 and demonstrates evidence of effectiveness at grades 7-10. Several of FHAO’s major resources are translated into Spanish, with some materials also available in Czech, French, and Hungarian.

GiveThx provides a lesson-based approach to SEL. It includes programming for grades 3-12 and demonstrated evidence of effectiveness at grades 9-12.

Heartfulness Program for Schools, offered by the Heartfulness Institute, provides a lesson-based approach to SEL. It includes programming for grades K-12 and demonstrates evidence of effectiveness at grades 7 and 8. Translated materials for Heartfulness Program for Schools are available in Spanish, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.

The Incredible Years (IY) is a set of teacher, child and parent programs designed to promote children’s social, emotional and academic competence including prevention and reduction of behavior problems in children ages 3-12. The IY Classroom Curriculum + Parent Training Program, as represented in the accepted research, combined a classroom child training curriculum (the Dinosaur Social Skills Program) with a parent program for students targeted due to conduct problems. The Dinosaur Social Skills classroom program focused on classroom management strategies, pro-social behavior, and reducing conduct disorders, presented in 60 class lessons over 2 years (K-1). The parent program provided weekly sessions for parents focused on ways they could improve their children’s social behavior and academic competence.

The current Basic Parent Curriculum, available in different versions based on age of child, consists of weekly 2-hour parent groups covering topics such as social, emotional, academic and persistence coaching, child-directed play, praise and incentives, effective limit setting, proactive discipline and problem solving. Themes throughout the parent program include building supportive social networks, emotional regulation and working collaboratively with teachers. Teaching methods for parents include goal setting and using video vignettes to trigger problem solving and practices. Parents are given home activities to read and practice weekly and set short term goals. The treatment version of the program is a minimum of 18-20 weeks and the prevention version is minimum of 14 weeks.

Inner Explorer provides lesson-based and teaching practices approaches to SEL. Inner Explorer offers programming for Pre-K-12. A CASEL-approved evaluation demonstrates evidence of effectiveness at grade 3. Inner Explorer is delivered via an online platform that teachers can log into to play daily mindfulness-focused video lessons for students. Materials are offered in Spanish and Ukrainian.