Therapeutic Schools: Affect Management and HIV Prevention

Adolescents are at risk for HIV because of sexual and drug behavior intiated during this developmental period. Those with psychological distress are less likely than their peers to benefit from frequently used skills-based interventions. It appears that emotional lability during sexual situations disrupts skills learned. This project will implement and evaluate interventions for adolescents with psychiatric disorders who are in therapeutic school settings. Affect management and skills-based interventions will be compared to a didactic standard of care condition to determine which intervention best reduces risk behavior among adolescents with psychiatric disorders in therapeutic school settings.