Hot Seat Activity

Although we are not implementing CBITs at Hinsdale Central, we did go to a training. Some of the activities are very helpful and I've been using them both in my individual meetings with students as well as groups. One activity in particular is the "Hot Seat Activity". It can be a group exercise, but doesn't have to be. During this activity, a student sits in the "hot seat" and can select a "coach". The student then comes up with or uses a personal negative scenario, and the goal is to produce alternative positive responses.

The coach can prompt with questions like:

• "is there another way to look at this?"
• "Even if this is true, what's the worst thing that can happen?" 
• "what is most likely to happen?"
• "Is there anything that can be done about it?"
• "has this happened to me before/how do I know this is true?"

The other activity that I've used from the CBITs training is "Steps Towards Facing your Fears". This activity aims to work towards a students fear in steps. I have used it, so far, for a school refusal student. They identified being at school as their fear (and rated it a 10 on their fear thermometer). The next step is to break it down into smaller steps to reach their fear. For example, coming in the building would be 1-2, staying for a half day 2-3, and so on.

Below is the link for the CBITs manual: it's free
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/commercial_books/CB200/CB209/RAND_CB209.pdf

Both activities are in the manual.