There are several major principles of youth interventions:

1. Children and young people rarely refer themselves
2. Children are rarely treated in isolation
3. There is a chance to intervene early
4. There is almost always a lot of heterogeneity
5. Development has to be taken into account

Children not referring themselves leads to problems with client motivation and problem awareness. There are three levels of youth intervention:

1. Universal (i.e. targets whole population)
2. Selective (i.e. targets youth with certain risk)
3. Indicated (i.e. targets youth already showing symptoms).

Treatment refers to targeting youth with symptoms at (sub)clinical level or those with a diagnosis. Heterogeneity in complaints exist because of three reasons:

• There is ongoing development in youth and this makes the complaints more likely to cause problems and more heterogeneous.
• There are more people involved

About 16% of the children exposed to a trauma develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is associated with psychiatric comorbidity (1), functional impairment (2) and persistence into adulthood (3). Early and effective treatment is needed to reduce the negative effects of PTSD.

Trauma-focused psychological therapies are recommended as first-line approach. Trauma-focused cognitive behavioural strategies (CBT) involve a combination of coping skills training (1), cognitive restructuring (2), therapist- and client-led exposure (3) and parent interventions (4).

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is a brief, trauma-focused treatment for PTSD. During this treatment, the patient holds a disturbing image from the trauma memory in mind while engaging in sets of saccadic eye movements. There is evidence that it works for adults. Both CBT and EMDR appear effective in reducing PTSD symptoms in adults. The sessions consist of history taking (1), treatment planning (2), preparation (3),

PTSD symptoms may persist into adulthood if children are not treated adequately. Cognitive behavioural treatment is more effective than a waitlist condition (1), community treatment (2), supportive therapy (3) or child-centred therapy (4) on short- and long-term outcomes. However, there is no consensus regarding essential aspects of the treatment (e.g. should anxiety management procedures be added?). Furthermore, most studies focus on a single traumatic event rather than complex trauma (i.e. multiple traumatic events).

Imaginal exposure and cognitive restructuring of trauma-related dysfunctional cognitions are seen as essential to CBT. Written exposure may be effective through the same mechanisms as exposure in CBT. Cognitive behavioural writing assignments produce materials which can be shared with partners or parents (i.e. social sharing). Social sharing may promote social support which reduces PTSD symptoms.

The narrative exposure treatment (NET) only uses the trauma narrative. It aims to reduce PTSD symptoms by

The most cost-effective treatment for childhood anxiety disorders (CAD) is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). It typically includes elements of cognitive restructuring and exposure activities aimed at targeting common anxiety symptoms. Involving the parents or family in CBT for CAD is only beneficial under certain conditions. However, about a third of the children do not respond to treatment and children with social anxiety disorder benefit less well than children with other disorders.

Attention problems play an important role in anxiety disorders (e.g. attentional bias). Mindfulness may affect attention as it is related to focusing one’s attention. Mindfulness implies welcoming daily hassles with acceptance, calmness, self-compassion and gratefulness. Mindfulness refers to awareness that arises by paying attention on purpose (1), focusing on the present moment (2) and non-judgementally (3). It is a mental state achieved by focusing on one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting