Garnering Resilience in Traumatized Youth and Families (GRIT): A Pilot Feasibility Study

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) impact almost half of youth and approximately 60% of adults in the United States. ACEs exposure may result in self-dysregulation and lead to harmful biopsychosocial stress responses, including alcohol and substance use. Garnering Resilience in Traumatized youth and families (GRIT) is a community health worker (CHW)-delivered psychoeducational, health coaching intervention. GRIT uses ‘Shift and Persist’ strategies associated with improving self-regulation and mitigating cardiometabolic risks in adversity-impacted communities. We developed the GRIT intervention to systematically teach self-regulation skills using a health coaching model that incorporates cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles in combination with heart rate variability biofeedback (HRV-BF). A feasibility pilot study of GRIT (n = 23 adolescent-caregiver dyads) is described.