Marta Casas, LMHC graduated from Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia, as a Clinical Psychologist in 1981. In 2002, Marta moved to Boston to become part of the clinical team at the Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute, where she continues conducting trauma evaluations of unaccompanied minors and survivors of human trafficking, providing clinical consultation for DCF-involved families, and is also training faculty at the Trauma Center certificate program, on the topic of trauma and culture. In 2007 Marta was trained and now part of the alumni of the Harvard Refugee Program in Global Mental Health. Since 2007, Marta has been a longstanding and active member of the NCTSN Culture Consortium and Translations Review Committee. Between 2007 and 2011, Marta was the team leader of the Latino Child Traumatic Stress Initiative, a SAMHSA/NCTSN-funded program at the Latin American Health Institute in Boston. Between 2011 and 2014, Marta worked at the Child Witness to Violence Project at Boston Medical Center, where she did clinical work with children and caregivers and was member of the training team and cultural liaison of the Massachusetts Child Trauma Project, an ACF-funded initiative that provides training and on-going consultation in evidence-based trauma approaches and treatments to strengthen Massachusetts DCF casework practices. Between 2013 and 2015, Marta was adjunct faculty at Boston College Graduate School of Social Work on Adult Psychosocial Pathology. At the present, Marta is the Director of Clinical Services at the Justice Resource Institute. She has done extensive work on the topic of the interplay between psychological trauma and cultural identity of both therapist and patient in the clinical work.
Network Members
This listing of NCTSN members includes current grantees as well as NCTSN Affiliates, former grantees who have maintained their ties to the Network.
Catholic Charities Hawaii
Catholic Charities Hawaii provides clinical treatment for children and adolescents who have experienced traumatic events as victims and/or witnesses of domestic violence. Catholic Charities Hawaii will utilize Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) in the treatment of children, adolescents, and their families. In addition, the agency provides community based trainings to educate state agencies, the military, schools, clinicians, and service providers on TF-CBT and working with traumatized children.
Catholic Charities of the East Bay
Catholic Charities of the East Bay Mental Health Department provides services utilizing a trauma-informed restorative practices model serving individuals and families in urban settings. Our model is a unique adaptation of
CBT, Motivational Interviewing, and community based restorative healing practices that addresses issues common to youth and adults that have experienced intergenerational poverty, family and community violence, criminal justice system involvement, and health, housing, and educational disparities. Our clinicians are based in schools and community settings in Contra Costa and Alameda Counties in California.
Catholic Charities, Inc.
Catholic Charities, Inc. and a constellation of Mississippi State government and nonprofit organizations joined the NCTSN to serve a wide range of urban, rural, and geographically isolated child trauma survivors. The first funding period was dedicated to providing evidence-based trauma training to Catholic Charities clinicians in home-based, residential, therapeutic foster care, unaccompanied refugee minor, and outpatient (Solomon) centers, and to providing cutting edge information to the community at large.
Based on the lessons learned through participation in a trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) learning collaborative in its first funding period, TRY implemented a Gulf Coast TF-CBT learning collaborative to build capacity in agencies to treat children and families affected by trauma after the region’s devastation from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Catholic Charities went on to develop a statewide trauma-informed system of care to meet the needs of children and families throughout Mississippi. Evidence-based practices were disseminated to public mental health clinicians via the Learning Collaborative model, with an emphasis on systems serving those least likely to have access to quality mental health care. Catholic Charities collaborated with NCTSN experts to provide TF-CBT learning collaboratives and Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress (SPARCS) learning collaboratives, as well as participating in training on the treatment of physically abused children. Currently, Catholic Charities clinicians serve as trauma experts in Mississippi and continue providing direct services to adults and children affected by trauma.
Celano, Marianne, PhD, ABPP
Marianne Celano is a board certified couple and family psychologist with over 30 years of experience in working with children and families. She is certified in TF-CBT, and certified as a PCIT therapist and Level I Trainer. In partnership with Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA), she has been mentoring masters level clinicians in TFCBT throughout Georgia, first with an NCTSN/SAMHSA grant, and now with a grant from the Department of Justice.
Center for Child and Family Health, Inc.
The Center for Child and Family Health's (CCFH) Project Connect: Promoting Recovery from Childhood Trauma increases access to and improves the quality of trauma-focused treatments and services for children, adolescents, and their families who experience traumatic events to improve child, family, and system outcomes and address behavioral health disparities among minorities. CCFH targets diverse youth (birth to 21; > 65% African American, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, or Multiracial; 31% Hispanic origin) and their families exposed to trauma, including children in military families or involved in the child welfare system. Project Connect (1) increases use of trauma treatment for children and families in our outpatient clinic through engagement strategies; (2) provides a comprehensive array of evidence-based trauma-informed treatments for youth and their caregivers (Child Parent Psychotherapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, SPARCS, Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and collaborates with other NCTSN centers to pilot additional interventions (Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competence; Multi-dimensional Grief Therapy); (3) enhances screening of children and their caregivers for co-occurring mental health and substance use concerns; (4) increases our community's capability to provide prevention and intervention services by providing trauma-informed trainings to service systems; (5) enhances sustainability by addressing policy and fiscal opportunities by collaborating with local social services, mental health, and managed care organizations; and (6) improves the quality of and access to trauma-focused services locally and nationally by participating in SAMHSA and NCTSN workgroups and collaborations.
Center for Child and Family Traumatic Stress at Kennedy Krieger Institute
Center for Child and Family Traumatic Stress is a program of Kennedy Krieger Institute, a Johns Hopkins University-affiliated specialty hospital internationally recognized for improving the lives of children and adolescents with pediatric developmental disabilities and disorders of the brain, spinal cord and musculoskeletal system, through patient care, special education, research, and professional training. Located in an urban community in Baltimore, the Center for Child and Family Traumatic Stress provides high-quality, culturally sensitive, comprehensive clinical programs and community-based services for children and families who experience or may be at risk for trauma related to maltreatment and exposure to violence. The Center offers a range of evidence-based and trauma-informed services, including prevention, treatment, specialized foster care, community outreach, advocacy, research and training through four main programs and services: Outpatient Mental Health Program, Therapeutic Foster Care Program, Early Head Start, and the Trauma Training Academy. The Outpatient Mental Health Program is a winner of one of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse & Mental Health Service Administration's (SAMHSA) 2009 Science and Service Awards in the category of"Treatment of Mental Illness and Recovery Support Services" for its implementation of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy. Since its participation in the NCTSN, the Center for Child and Family Traumatic Stress (CCFTS) is dedicated to providing quality clinical services using evidence-based and evidence-informed assessment and treatment practices. As an affiliate member, the Center remains involved with NCTSN activities focused on child sexual and physical abuse, complex trauma, trauma and substance abuse, early childhood trauma, traumatic experiences on parents, trauma-informed child welfare practices, secondary traumatic stress, cultural competence, family systems, policy and partnering with youth and families.
Center for Great Expectations
The Center for Great Expectations is a non-profit behavioral health agency in New Jersey that provides high quality, trauma-informed care to vulnerable, child welfare involved families who have experienced trauma, abuse, neglect, and substance use disorders. The agency has a number of components: (1) two residential programs for pregnant and parenting women: one for adolescents with mental health disorders and one for adult women with substance use disorders; (2) an outpatient program that offers gender specific substance abuse treatment to adult men and women through both intensive outpatient and outpatient levels of care; (3) a supportive housing program that provides rental assistance and support services to women with children who are in recovery from substance use disorders; (4) a licensed childcare center that provides a therapeutic environment for the children who reside in the residential programs. The Center approaches parenting from an attachment perspective and has created a unique Parent Infant Mental Health Program in the residential programs. Their NCTSN Trauma Focused Care Project brings Attachment, Regulation, and Competency (ARC) to all programs to serve the children, adolescents, and caregivers who are involved in the treatment and support services, expanding the Parent Infant Mental Health Services into the community. The Center provides ARC training to other New Jersey programs that offer residential substance abuse services to women and children, helping to expand trauma informed care in the substance abuse treatment arena.
Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress -Children's Hospital of Philadelphia & Nemours / A.I Dupont Hospital (DE)
The Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress (CPTS) addresses health-related traumas in the lives of children and families. Tens of millions of children in the US each year face injury, illness, pain, and frightening treatment experiences. Medical traumatic stress includes child and family responses to these medical events. The Center’s mission is to reduce medical traumatic stress by promoting trauma-informed health care and ensuring that health care providers are knowledgeable and skilled in trauma-informed care with diverse youth and their families. The Center develops and disseminates practical evidence-based tools that can be integrated into pediatric medical care. CPTS is unique in the Network in its core focus on secondary and tertiary health care settings, i.e., hospitals, emergency departments, and subspecialty medical care.
CPTS’ work in the NCTSN focuses on three goals / key constituencies: 1) Helping health care providers and health care systems improve outcomes for children and families at risk for medical traumatic stress by promoting evidence-based trauma-informed health care services. 2) Helping mental health and psychosocial providers become proficient in evidence-based interventions for ill and injured children and their families. and 3) Ensuring that children and families across the US have access to evidence-based resources and interventions that address the impact of medical traumatic stress for children’s health and wellbeing. The Center promotes awareness of medical traumatic stress and trauma-informed pediatric health care via www.HealthCareToolbox.org.
Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress -Children's Hospital of Philadelphia & Nemours / A.I Dupont Hospital (PA)
The Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress (CPTS) addresses health-related traumas in the lives of children and families. Tens of millions of children in the US each year face injury, illness, pain, and frightening treatment experiences. Medical traumatic stress includes child and family responses to these medical events. The Center’s mission is to reduce medical traumatic stress by promoting trauma-informed health care and ensuring that health care providers are knowledgeable and skilled in trauma-informed care with diverse youth and their families. The Center develops and disseminates practical evidence-based tools that can be integrated into pediatric medical care. CPTS is unique in the Network in its core focus on secondary and tertiary health care settings, i.e., hospitals, emergency departments, and subspecialty medical care.
CPTS’ work in the NCTSN focuses on three goals / key constituencies: 1) Helping health care providers and health care systems improve outcomes for children and families at risk for medical traumatic stress by promoting evidence-based trauma-informed health care services. 2) Helping mental health and psychosocial providers become proficient in evidence-based interventions for ill and injured children and their families. and 3) Ensuring that children and families across the US have access to evidence-based resources and interventions that address the impact of medical traumatic stress for children’s health and wellbeing. The Center promotes awareness of medical traumatic stress and trauma-informed pediatric health care via www.HealthCareToolbox.org.