CBRT™ for Children and Young People

A visual, structured and person-centred approach to early mental-health communication, relaxation and emotional wellbeing.

The majority of lifelong mental-health problems develop during childhood or adolescence. Early intervention supports physical, cognitive, behavioural, social and emotional development and can provide benefits across a person’s life.

How CBRT™ supports communication and participation

CBRT™ uses the Colour Breathing Disks©, conscious breathing, staged relaxation, positive affirmations and caring communication. The visual process can give a child or young person another way to focus, express feelings and take part without relying only on direct verbal questioning.

Individual and small-group sessions
Teamwork, including the selection of group Affirmation Cards©
Communication, listening and social-interaction skills
Identification of strengths and needs
Emotional intelligence, mindfulness awareness and flexible thinking
Prevention strategies, anger management and preparation for learning

Historical education development

The Discovery Emotional Intelligence Programme included Colour Breathing in its toolkit from 2003 to 2006 for work with schools, colleges, companies, children and adults in the UK and beyond.

David Boxall, a teacher and Discovery Programme and Colour Breathing Project Co-ordinator, attended the first official CBRT™ Practitioner Training Programme in 2005.

Historical professional feedback

Colour Breathing® "works" with students because of its ease of use and its beauty. Using colour to prepare for learning and to explore emotions has had a real and positive impact on the students I have worked with. They love to use the affirmations and found genuine pleasure from using the kit and talking about the ways in which the colour disks affect them.
In exploring the use of the Colour Breathing [CBRT™ kit], we have found the students transfixed by the beautiful colours and the disks themselves. By being introduced to the impact that different colours have upon day-to-day emotional wellbeing the students found that they were able to calm down while looking at the disks and to visualise the different colours when they were away from them.
As part of the Discovery Toolkit, Colour Breathing is an extremely effective tool in taking more control of the emotional chaos that many students feel they are in. We have worked with schools across the country, improving performance through emotional intelligence and teaching students essential employability skills. CBRT™ is one of the ways we give the staff and students a practical resource to calm, focus and prepare for working in schools and colleges across the UK.

Cheryl Buggy – Managing Director - The Discovery Programme

The power of colour is something we always talk about in our training. We also acknowledge that children and staff need to find ways of relaxing, feeling good and re-energising without becoming confused or threatened or cynical by the theory, science or metaphysics behind the impact of colour on their senses and well-being.
Colour Breathing® offers just that and we are looking forward to using it more with our clients, especially the children. The pilots we have run so far show that Colour Breathing works. Furthermore is a very versatile, straight forward and user friendly product that has potentially deep and positive impact.

Wellbeing and emotional intelligence life skills form an important part of the UK Curriculum.

A popular classroom activity - CBRT™ has been proven a very popular activity for children and young people of all age groups in the classroom setting.

During the CBRT™ Programme development stages - CBRT Relaxation Support Sessions were delivered as part of a Conductive Education School project in Kuwait.

During our development stages Colour Breathing was also delivered to groups of students in Southampton and Leeds Universities.

CBRT intends to work with Youth Leaders and young people in a pioneering CBRT™ Programme which has been written for the Commonwealth Secretariat.

In one trial carried out in a Junior school in Portsmouth [May 2005] 73% of the children requested that CBRT™ become part of the school’s weekly activity. The technique also shows the children how easy it can be to focus and concentrate before learning. Relaxation classes can also be offered to parents to help them with stress management and relaxation.

CBRT™ has been used in Special Needs and Conductive Education

CBRT™ contains the following components which are found to be supportive for Special Needs Users and their families:

Innovation and new ideas
Structured and guided CBRT™ Relaxation Support Sessions provide users with an 'expected process'.
Empowers all individuals with developmental and learning challenges
Engages instructional, social, recreational support for children and young/older adults with special needs
CBRT™ can be used as part of helping develop users key performance component areas - which include motor, sensory, cognitive and perceptual skills
Self- help skills with a safe and easy to use tool kit
Self empowerment and self belief strategy
Motivation skills and positive psychology
Suitable for use in pre-academic, academic and prevocational
Colour as a stimulus and positive psychology
Holistic support for users with mild to severe cognitive disabilities.
Providing Family members and carers with relaxation support.

This website is not intended to provide medical diagnosis, advice, treatment, or endorsement.