Research project
Knowledge centre Anxiety & Stress in Youth
Our mission is to recognise and treat stress and anxiety in children as early as possible, by connecting scientific research, clinical practice and education.
- Contact
- Anke Klein
- Funding
- Municipality of Leiden: Educational Innovation Grant
- Leiden Kennisstad
- ZonMw
Mission
The Knowledge Center for Anxiety and Stress in Youth is there to assist children, adolescents, and all involved in their education and development to deal with anxiety and stress. Anxiety and stress are part of life but can hinder children and adolescents to such an extent that they can no longer develop well. Anxiety can remain unnoticed for a long time, accumulate, and ultimately have a lasting impact on functioning.
We aim to prevent anxiety and stress symptoms from escalating. We share new methods to recognize signs of increasing anxiety and stress as early as possible and develop interventions to treat anxiety symptoms early and effectively. We contribute to the normalization of feelings of anxiety and stress by making them discussable from a young age, both at home and at school. By doing so, we hope to remove barriers to seeking help.
To make this possible, we collaborate with our partners to establish a strong connection between science, education, and youth support. We do this by sharing knowledge with professionals and staying in conversation with experts by experience. Our scientific research focuses on innovative methods to improve care for young people with anxiety and stress.
Vision
We are working towards a society in which feelings of anxiety and stress in children and young people are just as easy to discuss as difficulties with learning at school, concentration problems or physical complaints. Young people learn to understand and cope with these feelings of anxiety and stress. Teachers and educators know how to support them and act as role models.
Nevertheless, there will be young people for whom anxiety and stress get the upper hand too much. In an open climate they dare to discuss this. Teachers pay attention to signals of increasing anxiety and stress and students can receive extra support within the school. If more or extracurricular support is needed, they can immediately access care with those involved in the child’s development working together. The source of funding, should not determine access to needed care.
The care for pupils and children with severe anxiety symptoms is based on scientific research, with consideration for the individual situation. If existing treatments are not suitable, alternatives are sought and additional problems are addressed simultaneously, if necessary, in collaboration with other professionals.
Activiteiten
We work towards these goals through the following activities:
- Sharing knowledge through our website, social media, newsletter and attendance at events
- Providing presentations, workshops and trainings for education and youth care professionals
- An advice line available every working day between 9:00 and 17:00 for questions and advice (071-5275464)
- Developing and/or improving (preventive) interventions for children and young people with anxiety and stress
- Collaborating with education and youth care to identify needs to improve early detection of symptoms and referral to help
Projects
KiBA testing app/ KiBA the project
The KiBA project is for children aged between 7 and 14 who suffer from a specific fear, such as fear of dogs, heights, injections, thunderstorms, the dark, spiders or other animals. Children practice overcoming their fears step by step. We are investigating whether the treatment that already helps children with specific fears well can be further improved with the help of a home exercise programme.
KiBA app development
Children with specific phobia are overly afraid of certain objects, animals or situations, and this can make life quite difficult at home, at school and outside. With the KibA programme, we are investigating whether we can further improve the treatment of children with specific phobia using a home exercise programme. We are investigating whether mobile health apps (mHealth) can facilitate exercise at home. Currently, the app is being improved and further developed.
ISA
The intervention social anxiety (ISA) project is for children and adolescents aged between 8 and 16 with social anxiety disorder and their parents. Social anxiety is characterised by excessive fear and avoidance of social situations, with children mainly fearing being judged negatively by others. Parents and children follow a treatment programme, separately from each other, for 12 weeks. It is investigated whether the combination of treatments for both parents and children can increase the treatment outcome for children with social anxiety.
Leer te Durven!
The "Learn to Dare!" (Leer te Durven!) programme is a preventive training programme for children aged 8 to 12 with mild anxiety symptoms (Simon & Bögels, 2014). The aim of this programme is to help children with mild anxiety symptoms as early as possible so that their development is not hindered and further anxiety symptoms can be prevented. In addition, this project aims to further develop the programme so that 'Learn to dare' becomes available up to the age of 16.
Book LTD/DDD
The intervention 'Thinking + Doing = Daring' (Bögels, 2008) intended for children and adolescents between 8 and 18 years old with an anxiety disorder and the preventive intervention 'Learn to Dare!' (Simon & Bögels, 2013) intended for children between 8 and 12 years old with mild anxiety symptoms overlap strongly in content. A team is working on a new, integrated version of 'Think + Do = Dare' and 'Learn to Dare!'
In Je Sas!
For young people aged 12-17 who suffer from extreme shyness or social anxiety, we offer the group training programme "In Je Sas!". In 12 weekly meetings, we work on assignments to overcome shyness in social situations (such as speaking in front of a group, starting a conversation, calling people). We investigate whether the effect of this treatment is further enhanced by using an app that allows young people to keep in touch and practice during the week.
Stress Less
This project aims to teach lower secondary school students about stress and make any complaints negotiable. What is stress, what are the consequences, how do you recognise it in yourself and how do you deal with it? Three psycho-educational stress lessons have been developed for this purpose. Students who need more support can follow a follow-up training afterwards, for instance to tackle fear of failure or work on social skills.
Cool Little Kids
In this project, we offer two programmes for parents of shy and withdrawn children aged 2-6. His have a higher risk of developing anxiety problems later in life. We study whether these parent training programmes can prevent anxiety problems in shy, withdrawn children. Positive results have already been achieved abroad.