COPE, CALM and CARE are skills models and resources designed to help people recover from trauma, build personal resilience, and engage in healthy living.
Feelings are the easiest to notice, but are harder to change than thoughts, so we will start with thoughts. By changing unhealthy thoughts and reactions, we can develop positive feelings and healthy behaviors.
The CALM model is all about helping you remind yourself that you are in control of your body and its reactions to stress, panic, and anxiety. The COPE model taught thinking skills, and the CALM model teaches doing skills or active behaviors that can be used by children and adults to increase resilience and strengthen physiological responses to stressors.
The COPE and CALM models are about thinking and doing. The CARE model includes reminders for being and growing. The CARE model is more personal, in that the activities and ways the skills are practiced are very unique to each individual. The CARE model is based on the idea of each person identifying and working toward his or her happiest, healthiest self.