The Worry Busters Program: An Anxiety Intervention for Primary Aged Children

THE WORRY BUSTERS PROGRAM: AN ANXIETY INTERVENTION FOR PRIMARY AGED CHILDRENMarilyn Campbell (Author)Melissa Bates (Illustrations)Teneriffe Qld: Post Pressed 2006; distributed by eContent Management Pty Ltd, Maleny Qld.Titles in the series include: Teaching tips for the prevention of anxiety in children ISBN 9 781921214080; A is for anxiety: A parent's guide to managing child anxiety ISBN 1 876920 00 9; Anthony the shy alien /SBN 1 876920 01 7; Beulah the anxious bully ISBN 1 876920 02 5; Carla the terrified koala ISBN 1 876920 03 3; Cilla the worried gorilla ISBN1 876920 04 1; Danny the frightened dinosaur ISBN 1 876920 05 X; EMg the fearful pig ISBN 1 876920 06 8; Jali the nervous new boy ISBN 1 876920 07 6The Worry Busters program is designed to tackle anxiety in primary school-aged children aged five to twelve years. It comprises parent and teacher guides for managing children's anxiety and a series of seven books for children, each of which focuses on a character with a different type of anxiety condition. The conditions include social phobia (Anthony the Shy Alien), generalised anxiety disorder or worry (Jali the Nervous New Boy), separation anxiety disorder (Cilia the Worried Gorilla), physical phobias (Danny the Frightened Dinosaur), obsessive compulsive disorder (Dig the Feaful Pig), post-traumatic stress disorder (Carlo the Terrified Koala) as well as aggressiveness (Beulah the Anxious Bully).Collectively, anxiety conditions are the most common mental disorders in children. Moreover, they often persist throughout life, causing significant distress and interfering significantly with social life and achievement both during the child's formative years and later in adulthood. Early intervention to prevent or treat anxiety in childhood has the potential to avert some of these debilitating consequences. Campbell's program is intended to provide strategies and information to assist parents, teachers and children to do this.The parent's guide provides, in readable form, information about how to recognise the behaviours, thoughts and physical reactions associated with anxiety conditions. It also gives practical day-to-day strategies a parent can use to assist a child with anxiety. These include ideas about communication and modeling, and brief descriptions of evidence-based strategies such as graded exposure, cognitive restructuring (coping self-talk) and behavioural techniques. These strategies are likely to be of use both in a selfhelp context and also as a resource for parents whose children are receiving professional help. The teacher's guide is more technical and is designed to provide the teachers with classroom strategies for managing children with anxiety, to use the children's Worry Buster book series in class to teach children to label feelings of anxiety, develop coping behaviours and seek help. It incorporates suggested exercises to accompany the children's books and resources which can be photocopied for this purpose.The seven extensively illustrated children's books each centre around a different character whose behaviour and responses are typical of a child with an anxiety disorder. These stories are designed to assist children to better understand their own or other childrens' anxiety problems and, in the case of the child who has an anxiety condition, to learn they are not alone in experiencing these difficulties. The narratives also include some strategies for coping (eg graded exposure) and all stories model a help seeking approach. …