Boston Children's Hospital Neighborhood Partnerships | Break Free from Depression Program

Break Free from Depression (BFFD) is a four-module curriculum focused on increasing awareness about adolescent depression and designed for use in high school classrooms. The goals are to increase adolescents' awareness about depression, teach them how to recognize it in themselves and in their friends, and give them strategies for finding help. This curriculum is now available online (more information is below). Included in the materials are step-by-step directions, handouts, resources, and all of the presentations for the student curriculum, parent workshop, and staff development workshop.

Break Free from Depression also features a compelling documentary (trailer above) that focuses on a diverse group of adolescents talking about their struggles with depression and suicide. We learn about their symptoms, how their lives were impacted, and the methods they used for coping with depression through their own words. They are not actors, and the documentary is not scripted. We chose this storytelling technique so that youth are able to learn about symptoms and recognize their impact through their peers’ own words. The documentary also addresses hope. The adolescents in the film do not only share their distress, but also ways they found help and relief, and the skills they have learned to manage depression.

Break Free from Depression, in partnership with OPENPediatrics, has developed a series of training videos to share the BFFD train-the-trainer workshop and materials with educators and school communities nationally.

All of our curriculum’s four modules are presented in this video series. They focus on how educators can facilitate the Break Free from Depression program in their school or community program to help increase awareness about adolescent depression among high school students. After viewing the videos and completing the post survey, you will have access to all of the online materials so you can implement the Break Free from Depression curriculum in your school or community program.

This online training is part of the Training and Access Project (TAP) Online series, which provides free online courses for educators and school communities everywhere.