Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a therapeutic framework that focuses on helping people learn coping skills for when they are experiencing distressing events or emotions. In Netivot, the students are learning these skills on a schoolwide level as a social emotional wellness curriculum. Pictured, students are laying out the ACCEPTS sorting work from the DBT Distress Tolerance module. ACCEPTS is an acronym for many options one can do when feeling overwhelmed with a big emotion. For example, “A” indicates to go do an “activity,” “C” indicates “contribute” to someone, etc. There are many options because different skills work for different people! Students are taught to personalize their toolkits by choosing specific ways they would use the skill that is effective for them. For example, one student shared that she would change her “Emotion” (the “E” in ACCEPTS) by singing her favorite song while the other student chose to change her emotion through playing with her squishmallows. Additionally, the students practiced thinking of something sad, then listening to a joyful song and then describing how it changed their emotion. By practicing these skills and having specific methods ready in advance, students are being wonderfully equipped to help themselves make wise choices without negative consequences when those big waves of emotion hit.