History & Research
The Resilience Builder Program-Universal™ (RBP-U) is a school-based intervention adapted from the original Resilience Builder Program® (RBP).
- The RBP is a manualized group therapy program focused on enhancing resilience skills using a cognitive behavioral framework.
- Groups for youth from kindergarten through high school have been conducted since 1992 at Alvord, Baker & Associates, LLC (ABA), a private psychotherapy practice directed by the creator of the RBP and our Founder, Dr. Mary Alvord.
In 2009, ABA began its collaboration with the Catholic University of America to examine the effectiveness of the RBP in the private practice setting.
- In more than 10 years of research, development, and implementation, we found that youth who participated in the RBP had improvements in a number of positive outcomes (Aduen et al., 2014; Alvord, Rich, & Berghorst, 2014; Senior et al., 2020; Watson et al., 2013)
Starting in January 2015, the RBP was implemented by clinicians in schools primarily serving economically marginalized communities.
- We randomized 169 students (4th-6th grade) from 5 elementary schools who were nominated for the RBP to participate in the RBP immediately, or after a one-semester delay.
- Compared to students who had not yet participated in the intervention, students who participated in the RBP demonstrated increases and decreases in the following areas after the intervention (Rich et al., 2019; Rich et al., 2022):
