2005

A pilot program at Learning Together in Raleigh, NC, incorporated research-based practices and community professionals’ expertise to work with birth to 5-year-olds, and developed an innovative systemic course of mental health treatment entitled BEST Buddiez, an acronym standing for the prevention themes of boundaries, empathy, self-esteem, and thinking. The overall socially proactive concept of a group of buddies, in fact, best friends, allows for group work on a 3- and 4- year-old level for their own individual issues of social difficulty. Certainly, not all of the children in the program are to a point that they can participate in the group modality, but the concepts are still worked into the individual therapy, aiming to prepare them for group interactions at a later date.