TOPIC · AGES 14–18

Depression

Behavioral activation, values sorting, and connection prompts — built for adolescents whose week has gone quiet.

CBT
Strengths-Based
Solution-Focused
Age fit
Why this deck is built for ages 14–18.

Adolescent depression rarely shows up as the textbook low-mood label — it lands as anhedonia, as the friend group shrinking without a fight, as the third skipped Monday in a row. The 14–18 age band is exactly where peer context starts carrying more weight than family context, so a quiet week at school is a louder signal than a quiet week at home. School-avoidance spirals tend to harden in this window: one excused absence becomes two, then a month, and the longer the teen sits out the harder the return becomes. The parent or caregiver loop-in window closes fastest — by mid-adolescence the schedule is more a teen-owned artifact than a household one, so the visit that introduces activation is also the visit that anchors it at home. Suicidal-ideation screening runs before any activation work, every visit, because the presentation that brings the teen in is rarely the one that brings them back. Built for the teen who names the slump out loud, not the teen who performs well enough to slip through.

Clinical goals
What this topic is built to land.
  • Screen for suicidal ideation first — name the C-SSRS items out loud, brief safety-plan any teen who scores positive before any activation work begins.
  • Schedule one small, observable activation step per day tied to a value the teen names, not to mood, so the room can predict progress without the spark.
  • Sort values into the four life areas and let the teen pick the one to act on this week — connection, mastery, recreation, or contribution — instead of working all four at once.
  • Loop in a parent or caregiver within the same visit to anchor the activation schedule at home, since the doing muscle does not transfer without a co-pilot in the room.
Materials at a glance
What you'll have on the table.
  • C-SSRS-style safety-screen card (one per teen, half-letter)
  • Activation tracker (3 rows/day, half-letter, 110 lb stock)
  • Values sort deck (4 life areas × 8 cards, drops into a four-pocket mat)
  • Parent/caregiver loop-in handout (one sheet, take-home)
Approaches
Evidence frames used in this topic's kits.
CBT
Strengths-Based
Solution-Focused

Kits

Kits authored under Depression

Each kit is a full 90-minute session plan — clinical structure preserved, language tailored to your group's tone, scenario difficulty, and cultural context. Printable end to end.

In production
Depression kit · Kit 01
CBT/Strengths-Based/Solution-Focused — adolescent group, ages 14–18

90-minute group session · adolescent group · printable.

View the kit →
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