Resilience Builder Program®-Universal

The RBP®-U teaches children essential skills, including social skills, leadership, coping strategies for difficult emotions, and proactive problem-solving, that research shows increase students’ resilience and academic engagement. The program also helps normalize conversations about mental health and deepen youth’s understanding of it.

Our curriculum builds on the success of the Resilience Builder Program®, adapting its evidence-based approach for the classroom setting. It helps children develop the same protective factors — like self-regulation and effective coping strategies — while giving parents resources to reinforce resilience skills at home. Lessons are broken into short activities designed to fit easily alongside standard academic instruction.

The RBP-U comprises 12 topics, each delivered through three 15-minute “mini-lessons” that teachers lead with their entire class. Each mini-lesson teaches practical skills in an engaging, age-appropriate way. Teachers receive online access to lesson plans, animated videos introducing key concepts, and supporting materials, including scripts, student handouts, group activities, relaxation exercises, and classroom posters, along with monthly support sessions with our trained mental health providers to ensure the program is administered effectively. All materials were developed by mental health experts in consultation with local teachers, who were surveyed on which content and formats would work best in their classrooms. We also supply common classroom materials used in our lessons, such as chart paper, markers, and sticky notes.

Teachers currently implementing the RBP-U provide ongoing feedback through surveys and consultation groups on the program’s training, content, and support. RAB uses this feedback to assess the program’s feasibility (how easily it can be administered) and acceptability (how well it meets students’ and teachers’ needs). Once feasibility and acceptability are established and the program is refined based on teacher input, RAB will study the RBP-U’s effectiveness in promoting positive mental health and academic outcomes among underserved youth.

Program Timeline

2022–2023 school year: RAB partnered with a local DC school district to train and pilot the RBP-U with 3 teachers.

2024–2025 school year: RAB expanded the pilot to a larger district, training 11 teachers across 5 schools and gathering research on program effectiveness with roughly 200 students. Results demonstrated positive outcomes in resilience, classroom engagement, motivation, and student interpersonal skills.

2025–2026 school year: RAB conducted a randomized controlled trial evaluating the RBP-U’s efficacy across 20 classrooms in 8 schools. Roughly 300 students participated in the research component, and nearly 600 students received the program overall.

2026–2027 school year (upcoming): RAB will expand access to the RBP-U by adding third-grade classrooms and developing additional classroom supports to strengthen the program and further build students’ resilience skills.

What sets us apart?

The RBP®-U is adapted from a well-established intervention backed by years of research findings. In addition to its unique focus on building resilience skills in youth, the RBP®-U differs from other school-based social-emotional learning programs in its primary goal of reducing racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in access to mental health interventions. Resilience Across Borders also highly values its partnerships with schools and other stakeholders. We prioritize consulting with teachers, counselors, principals, and other community stakeholders in order to incorporate feedback into the development of the RBP®-U as an evolving program to fit the needs of the community. In this way, the program and the schools with which we collaborate evolve together. Finally, the RBP®-U is distinct in its emphasis on caregiver involvement, which research shows benefits youth’s social-emotional learning. We obtain informed consent from caregivers before the program begins and we developed family newsletters in both English and Spanish for teachers to send home after each topic. These provide families with concrete ways to help their children practice resilience skills.

Resilience Builder Program®

The Resilience Builder Program® was developed by our Founder and President of the Board, Dr. Mary Alvord, and colleagues in the 1990s. It is an evidence-based group therapy program used in private practice and school settings. It is designed to help youth bounce back from the challenges in their lives by increasing confidence, self-esteem, self-control, and the use of coping strategies.

From 2016 to 2020, we trained clinicians and graduate students to deliver the Resilience Builder Program® to small groups of students in Maryland and Washington, DC. For twelve weeks, our clinicians went directly into elementary schools and worked with children who school counselors, teachers, or administrators had identified as needing additional support. Using this approach, we were able to support about 200 children in total.

Group activities help develop the following specific protective factors associated with resilience:

• Proactive orientation toward life
• Self-regulation of attention, emotions, and behavior
• Social connections and attachments
• Achievements and talents
• Community ties
• Proactive parenting

Each session encourages self-awareness, flexible thinking, and social competence. Through discussion, role-play, and other hands-on techniques, group members learn about self-talk, personal space awareness, problem solving, anger/anxiety management, friendship skills, and other topics essential to well-being and social success.

Relaxation techniques including calm breathing, visualization, progressive muscle relaxation, and yoga enhance self-regulation. And at-home practice, community field trips, and a parent involvement component help group members generalize what they learn to the world outside the group.