Psychological First Aid:
Second Edition Released

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, in collaboration with the National Center for PTSD (NC-PTSD), has recently released the second edition of the Psychological First Aid Field Operations Guide. Psychological First
Aid (PFA) is an evidence- informed post-disaster acute intervention for children, adolescents,
adults, and families to reduce initial distress and promote adaptive functioning. This Field
Operations Guide is supported by many disaster mental health experts as the acute intervention of choice for those affected by mass disasters. It is being used by many organizations and state
agencies across the country. 

The revised Guide can be downloaded from
the home page of the NCTSN website (www.nctsn.org). This edition includes new sections on supporting survivors whose loved
ones are missing, assisting those who have suffered the death of a loved one, helping
parents talk to children about death and attending funerals, and working with the frail elderly, disabled, and very young children. Preparing the new edition involved extensive collaboration
among Network members and national partners (see the PFA second edition for the list of these important collaborators). Feedback from about
275 individuals who downloaded and used the earlier version of the Guide and responded to
a web-based survey also contributed to the
revision and update. (Continued)

Master Speaker Series: 
Update and Improvements

The Master Speakers Series has offered five presentations between February and August 2006, with four more sessions scheduled in 2006. This NCTSN series offers in-depth educational opportunities by national leaders in the child trauma field, all of whom donate their time and expertise to the series. 

These free teleconferences have drawn participants from about 380 different child-serving agencies and organizations, and are becoming increasingly popular both inside and outside the NCTSN membership. The NCTSN Distance Learning and Education Team developed an evaluation protocol to allow participants to assess each presentation, and this information has been used to continually improve the quality of each session. (Continued) 

Learning Collaborative Training Sessions Offered in Katrina and Rita Impact Areas

On August 1-2, 2006, in Pearl, Mississippi, NCTSN staff from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (CARES Institute), the National Center
for Child Traumatic Stress (NCCTS), and the Catholic Charities Trauma Recovery for Youth (TRY) program teamed up to offer the first Mississippi Learning Collaborative in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). TF-CBT was an evidence-based intervention to help children who have experienced trauma, created by Esther Deblinger, Judy Cohen, and Tony Mannarino. (Continued)