Awaken's group mission is to help adolescents cope, strategize, and implement new ways of thinking about topics such as: self advocacy, family interactions, personal responsibility, school-based stress, sexuality, coping strategies, internet safety, peer pressure, depression, and anxiety. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy emphasized.

The group focuses to motivate middle school students to be conscious of themselves and their environment while building self-advocacy skills. With an emphasis on social skills, the group aims to build upon individual strengths and identify potential growth areas. The group utilizes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) to help students gain new skills, validate their experience, and gain confidence in tolerating difficult emotions and circumstances going forward.

The group will focus on Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) skills, specifically mindfulness and distress tolerance. Other topics will include internet safety, substance use/prevention, anxiety, depression, and effective communication within conflict. The group is open to parents of children of any age. Group content will with correlate with adolescent groups so that parents and adolescents are receiving similar information. The hope is this will bring greater understanding and valuable conversation at home. Register by emailing Christine Pope at christinep@gurneecounselingcenter.com