The Children Overcoming Obstacles and Limits (COOL) Zone is a behavioral health setting for children ages 3 through 12 experiencing a range of behavioral and emotional disruptions such as aggression, anxiety, depression, withdrawal, family disruption, emotional difficulties, and traumatic responses. The program was developed through a partnership between the Pittsburgh Penguins Foundation and Theiss Center for Trauma and Early Childhood at UPMC Western Behavioral Health.
COOL Zones are housed within schools, community, or office settings and the specific interventions implemented in each location are adapted to the needs of individual communities and types of services needed. Close attention is paid to the environment in which services are delivered. Rooms are transformed into spaces that are child-friendly, interactive and non-stigmatizing for children to feel comfortable expressing themselves. The therapy room is equipped with the latest activities and centers that support each child’s mental health needs. These include sensory items, calming areas, group activity corners, social-emotional games and projects as well as private areas for individual therapy and support.
Since our first COOL Zone programs were housed within schools and classrooms, a child-friendly therapeutic play-like structure in the form of a life-sized igloo was constructed within the room where children can have a private space to conduct individual therapy with a clinician and/or to self-regulate. The igloo has become the cornerstone of all COOL Zone locations and allows children and therapists to have private conversations while other are present and working in the room, yet easily observed through large windows. The space served to further a goal of reducing stigma associated with behavioral health treatment for children by creating a clinical space that does not feel clinical – it is warm, engaging, and promotes positive approaches to treatment.
Currently UPMC Western Behavioral Health has COOL Zones that serve Community and School Based Behavioral Health Programs in the Woodland Hills, McKeesport, and Penn Hills School Districts. Our Child and Adolescent Trauma Services are located within our COOL Zone at Hosanna House in Wilkinsburg. Our Early Childhood Mental Health Outpatient Programs provide services within the COOL Zone spaces at Pine Center in Wexford and our new Child and Adolescent treatment facility at 2400 East Carson Street. UPMC Western Behavioral Health’s Behavioral Health of the Alleghenies Children’s Behavioral Health Programs also provides services within a COOL Zone in Altoona, PA.