Tuning in to Teens in Aotearoa New Zealand: evaluating an emotion coaching programme for parents of young adolescents in Child Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

INTERVENTION: Tuning in to Teens TM (TINT). This is a programme for parents of adolescents that has been adapted from a programme for younger children, Tuning into Kids TM by Professor Sophie Havighurst and team at the University of Melbourne. This programme aims to support parents to better ‘tune in’ to the emotions of their children by becoming ‘emotion coaches’. Emotion coaching is an adaptive emotion socialisation style which encourages understanding and acceptance of emotional experience TINT is designed to be delivered in a group format over either 6 or 8 weekly sessions of two hours each. An 8‐week format will be used for the study as the recommended format for clinical settings. Sessions will be held at Child Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and delivered by trained CAMHS clinicians. The focus of sessions is teaching emotion coaching skills. Sessions also include information about adolescent development, teaching of emotion regulation skills such as mindfulness, and supporting parents to reflect on meta‐emotions (i.e. their own beliefs about emotions based on their life experiences). Each session includes a mix of teaching, shared reflection and practicing learnt skills. Participants are encouraged to practice emotion coaching skills outside sessions and there are optional homework tasks assigned each session designed to facilitated parent‐teen communication. These are typically worksheet based conversation prompts to complete with their teen focused on different emotions such as ‘How can you tell if a friend is happy or sad?’ Optional homework tasks are expected to take 30‐60 minutes per week. Facilitators may be clinicians in CAMHS of any discipline or experience. They must be trained in delivery of TINT to facilitate the program. Training will be CONDITION: Mental Health ‐ Depression Anxiety in young adolescents;Depression in young adolescents; ; Anxiety in young adolescents ; Depression in young adolescents Mental Health ‐ Anxiety PRIMARY OUTCOME: Emotion regulation as measured by the Difficulties in Emotion Regulate Scale, Short Form (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004) with higher scores equating to greater difficulties with emotion regulation. [ Baseline (T0), after completing TINT group/matched for controls (T1; primary timepoint), and 8 weeks after completing TINT group/matched for controls (T2).] Parent responses to emotion as measured by the Emotions as a Child Scale (EAC; Magai, 1996) with a score calculated for level of emotion dismissing, higher scores equating to higher levels of emotion dismissing. [ Baseline (T0), after completing TINT group/matched for controls (T1; primary timepoint), and 8 weeks after completing TINT group/matched for controls (T2).] SECONDARY OUTCOME: Symptoms of depression and anxiety as measured by the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS; Chorpita et al. 2000), higher scores equating to higher levels of depression/anxiety and a meaningful improved defined as at least 50% reduction in the raw score or 25% for youth with treatment resistant depression. [Time point ‐ Baseline (T0), after completing TINT group/matched for controls (T1), and 8 weeks after completing TINT group/matched for controls (T2).] INCLUSION CRITERIA: For adolescents that they are: • aged between 10 to 14 years at the time of recruitment. • competent to complete outcome measures with fluency in English. • have least one parent/caregiver/whanau member who meets study inclusion criteria. For parent/caregiver/whanau members that they are: • aged over 18 years. • have care of a child in CAMHS who meets the inclusion criteria. • competent and available to complete the intervention group and outcome measures with sufficient fluency in English • accepted into a CAMHS in the Wellington region with a primary presenting difficulty related to a common mental health disorder: i.e. anxiety disorder (including panic, generalised anxiety, social anxiety, separation anxiety) or mood disorder (including depressive disorder or depressive episode).