CAPS Counselors Win National Grant from American College Counseling Association 

Emotional regulation is something that many people take for granted. The ability to manage and respond to one’s own emotions comes naturally for some and is learned for others. However, for another group of people, being able to emotionally regulate oneself is rather challenging.

That’s where Stavroula Sassos and Candice Clifford, both mental health counselors at Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), come in. They realized that emotional regulation is a crucial life skill — especially among the college-age population — and that students were struggling. 

“Through meeting with students we identified that students needed support with learning emotional regulation skills,” Clifford said. She explained that Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a therapeutic approach that has been shown to be effective in helping individuals manage their emotions — something she and Sassos knew needed more attention.

The duo, with the support of CAPS Executive Director Smita Majumdar Das and CAPS Associate Director Oren Shefet, set out to make a difference in the field. They not only identified students who would benefit from DBT, but then modified the model so it would be more accessible for students without losing any of the benefits. 

“Traditional DBT skills groups can take anywhere from six months to one year and are traditionally 1.5 hour to 2.5 hour long sessions,” Sassos said. “We knew that this would not be accessible for our student population. We decided [on] running a condensed group consisting of four 45 minute long sessions.” 

The two noticed results in their students almost immediately and decided that this information was worth sharing with others in the field, taking the initial observations and creating a research study that would look at a condensed DBT informed skills group more closely. The team applied for the 2025 Research Grant of the American College Counseling Association (ACCA) with the encouragement of Majumdar Das and the mentorship of Shefet, and the work truly began. 

“We were both excited by the idea of conducting research and the possibility of being able to disseminate our findings to other colleges and universities that we wanted to apply right away,” said Clifford. 

The submission process included a literature review of relevant research, which Sassos and Clifford then articulated through a research proposal; the competition was steep, as the ACCA is a national organization.

“Study teams from universities across the country sent in their own proposals,” said Sassos, who added that the hard work was worth it. Their study,”The Effectiveness of a DBT Informed Skills Group Within a Brief Therapy Model Among College Students,” was awarded the grant. 

“We were both so elated when we found out,” Sassos said. “This was not only an accomplishment for us, but an accomplishment for the team at CAPS and Stony Brook as a whole. We are excited by the idea that our research and group will support other university counseling centers when completed.”

“When we accepted the Research Grant at the 2025 ACCA conference, we were so proud to be representing Stony Brook University. Since ACCA is a nationally recognized organization, this accomplishment highlights Stony Brook on a national level,” Clifford said. 

For the near future, the team is focused on continuing to make DBT work for students, as well as training others at CAPS to use their model. They are also looking to create other groups using this structure that will allow students to receive the services they need in a way that makes CAPS services more accessible. Both Sassos and Clifford are looking to conduct more research programs so they — and Stony Brook University — can contribute to the college counseling field in an impactful way. 

“By listening to our students, we will continue to identify needs and implement supportive interventions to improve well-being,” Clifford  said. 

— Emily Cappiello