While ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) was originally designed with adults in mind, the development of psychological flexibility can be just as relevant for children and young people.
This ebook provides 10 practical ways to adapt ACT for children, including tools and examples from clinical work with young people. While the processes themselves don’t change, the methods do to incorporate things like play, sensory experiences, metaphors and movement.
Download adapting ACT for children and young people
Adapting ACT for children and young people: 10 practical ways to meet young people where they are
This guide details 10 practical tools and examples to help adapt ACT for children and young people.
- Keep ACT concrete, sensory and play-based
- Values become “what matters to you” in their language
- Use characters and externalisation for defusion
- Teach acceptance through the body, not words
- Keep committed action small and supported
- ACT with children is always systemic
- Build self-as-context through creative identity work
- Modelling psychological flexibility matters more than insight
- Creative hopelessness through simple games
- Parents are co-therapists, not observers
It includes clinical adaptations and ideas to help therapists, teachers, parents, social workers and other support workers to integrate ACT principles into their work.
