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. 

The purpose of the Centerstone of Florida Trauma Training and Treatment project is to increase access to effective trauma-focused treatment and services for children and adolescents ages 2-17 and their families who witness or experience traumatic events in three Florida counties (DeSoto, Manatee, and Sarasota). Centerstone will implement two trauma-focused evidence-informed and evidence-based interventions developed by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN): (1) Assessment-Based Treatment for Traumatized Children: A Trauma Assessment Pathway (TAP) and (2) Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). A care manager conducts eligibility assessments and co-occurring disorder screening at intake. Therapists conduct additional (up to three) TAP Assessments with the client/family to identify the most appropriate treatment for each child/adolescent. The Trauma Trainer arranges Youth Mental Health First Aid courses for focus area stakeholders. The Outreach Specialist conducts outreach and engagement in diverse community venues, interfacing with child-serving systems, state/local agencies, healthcare providers, law enforcement, child welfare agencies, and more to identify/refer/engage individuals in need of trauma program services. The Specialist develops community partnerships to collaborate with the Advisory Council and Youth Task Force. The Trainer arranges training for community stakeholders in trauma-informed practices, cultural competence, and NCTSN Learning Center modules. The Trainer coordinates with Centerstone Military Services (CMS) to host military culture and best practices training for providers who work with children of military families.

The Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego is creating the The Center for Child Welfare Trauma-Informed Policies, Programs, and Practices (TIPs Center) to support child welfare (CW) system efforts across the nation. The ultimate goal of the TIPs Center is for Trauma Informed (TI) knowledge and skills to permeate into CW organizational cultures, at all levels and among all roles, resulting in positive sustainable changes in the systems, policies, and practices which lead to better outcomes for children and families served by these systems. The Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit (CWTTT) is being transformed into four new curricula for use with specific targeted segments of the CW system workforce including caseworkers, supervisors, leaders (directors and managers), and support staff (receptionists, case aides, etc.). Information on how culture and trauma intersect is being wound into each of the curricula and all of them will be designed with a consultation/coaching framework. The TIPs Center is developing a system for training trainers across the country in these curricula and will provide continued support to these rostered trainers. Thoughtful consideration is being given to how to roll the adaptations out to communities that have already received the initial CWTTT training. Advanced training around topics such as secondary traumatic stress and screening and service array are also being developed. Additionally, the TIPs Center is working with CW training organizations to explore how TI concepts can be infused into existing core/foundational CW training.

The Early Childhood Trauma Collaborative (ECTC) is developing a more trauma-informed early childhood system of care in Connecticut, with an emphasis on the state’s neediest communities. The ECTC is led by the Child Health and Development Institute (CHDI), an intermediary organization that has partnered with state and provider agencies to disseminate and sustain children’s behavioral health evidence-based practices for more than 10 years. The ECTC is a collaboration between CHDI, the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood, The Connecticut Department of Children and Families, The Consultation Center at Yale University (evaluator), a family partner, treatment developers at other NCTSN sites, and a network of community-based provider agencies. The ECTC is improving access to trauma-focused services for Connecticut’s young children aged birth through 7 exposed to violence, abuse, and other forms of trauma by: 1) disseminating evidence-based treatments in the community; 2) developing internal capacity to support sustainability of these EBPs; and 3) improving the ability of the state’s early childhood workforce to identify and refer children and families in need of trauma-focused services. The ECTC will disseminate and sustain Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competency (ARC), Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), Trauma Affect Regulation: Guide for Education and Treatment (TARGET), and Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention (CFTSI).