The TherapY Box for the classroom: SSWN Open Access 2020

Editor’s Note: In this SSWN Open Access 2020 series, we’re sharing the articles from the just-published open-access International Journal of School Social Work (published by SSWAA and where I serve as Editor-in-Chief) with SSWN readers and to invite authors and practitioners to interact with this original research here and over at our SSWNetwork platform. The fourth article is about the “Therapy Box,” a multi-component play therapy intervention that SSW can utilize with elementary-age youth. The study conducted by Dr. Susan Elswick and her team, looked at the outcomes of a pilot study of the Therapy Box with 14 youth in 5 different schools, and wrote in their paper:

Based on the findings of this research, it appears that the Therapy Box was a successful intervention for all of the 14 students that participated in this study. The frequency of student maladaptive behaviors for many of the participants decreased to 0…however, the frequency of maladaptive behavior never decreased completely to 0 nor did it maintain that level during the 16-week intervention. In these cases, it is important to remember that symptom reduction is also a sign of behavioral success in the field of educational social work and programming in the applied setting. Importantly, the results of piecewise regression suggest that Therapy Box could be an effective intervention for reducing instances of aggression. In conclusion, the Therapy Box is suggested as a possible intervention for students who display maladaptive behaviors within the classroom, but more research is needed on this intervention and process.

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Dr. Elswick also shared her answers to the questions, “what do you study and why does it matter?” and “what is one thing you’d like all school clinicians to know based on your research?” here:

The-Therapy-Box

Tell us what you think and share how you might use these intervention ideas where you practice, over at SSWNetwork.