Better Behaviours Service
What We Offer
Children and youth referred to BBS may be fighting, breaking rules, having difficulties in friendships, falling behind academically
or having problems negotiating adult expectations. Problems are serious enough to be noticed at home, at school, with peers
or in the community.
Individual Treatment
We offer brief, goal-focused individual therapy for children, adolescents and families to help them learn new ways to deal
with problems related to complex disruptive behaviour.
Group Treatment
The Incredible Years Parenting Program is a 15-week parent training group. It is offered to parents with children ages 6 to 12 who display non-compliant, disruptive
and aggressive behaviour. Through the program parents work with trained facilitators to promote positive behaviour in their
children, reduce their parental stress, improve their relationship with their child, and lessen their child’s disruptive behaviour.
The program is offered both in the daytime, and in the evening when the parents’ children are enrolled in the Dinosaur Social
Skills Program.
The Dinosaur Social Skills Program is a 15-week social skills training group for children, ages 6 to 8, who demonstrate challenging behaviours including non-compliance
to adult requests, disruptive/aggressive behavior and social behavior difficulties. The program teaches children positive
ways to communicate, solve problems, deal with anger, build self-esteem and develop social skills. It is offered in the evening
when the children’s parents are enrolled in the Incredible Years Parenting Program.
Both programs use videos, exercises, homework, group discussion and role-plays.
The Addressing Behaviour and Treatment Effectiveness Project (ABATE) is a treatment study to evaluate the effectiveness of individualized child and family treatment compared to group-based parent
and child treatment for children aged 9 – 12 with disruptive/aggressive behaviour (i.e., Coping Power). Parents and children who are a good fit for the project are invited to participate in assessment and 15 weeks of either
treatment. Each form of treatment is geared towards developing children’s skills with managing their anger, building more
prosocial behaviours and teaching problem-solving and social skills. The parenting component helps parents develop more
effective skills to manage their child’s behaviour, promote better communication and positive behavioural development. Parent
and child groups are offered concurrently in the evening.
Day Treatment
The CATCH Classroom is a 10-month, day treatment classroom, for children, ages 6 to 8 with clinically significant emotional, behavioural and
learning complexities across settings. It serves eight children per academic year. Individualised treatment plans are developed
for children and families. These incorporate therapeutic work within the classroom and regularly scheduled child and family
work. Each component is essential in providing effective treatment.
The CATCH Classroom is a partnership with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and is housed on-site at CAMH, in the Child,
Youth and Family Program. It offers academic and therapeutic programming. The academic programming follows the guidelines
and curriculum set by the Ontario Ministry of Education.