The Chadwick Center is an accredited children's advocacy center (CAC). It is one of the largest hospital-based CACs and trauma treatment centers in the nation. Our CAC provides family-focused and trauma-informed services to children and adolescents who may have experienced or witnessed maltreatment, abuse or violence. Our multidisciplinary team (MDT), also known as the Child Protection Team (CPT), includes caring and trained professionals from law enforcement, child protection, prosecution, mental health, medical, family advocacy and other CAC staff and community partners. We provide specialized services to help children and families heal from abuse and trauma by providing a coordinated, compassionate MDT response. This ensures that children don't have to share their stories multiple times. Click on the Programs link above to get information about the services the Chadwick Center offers for children and their families in San Diego County who have experienced trauma or abuse.
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.
Chadwick Center for Children and Families
Chase, Sandra, MSW, ACSW
Sandra was formerly the Director of the Social Work internship program at Children’s Institute in Los Angeles California. Sandra has an extensive career in both Child Welfare and Mental health.
During her 24 years in management at CII she participated in several NCTSN projects. She was trained and utilized NCTSN’s Core Curriculum on Childhood trauma to provide case conceptualization training to Social work interns. She also participated in the Child welfare breakthrough collaborative. As the agency foremost trainer on cultural responsiveness, she provided training that explores the effect of historical trauma, implicit bias and privilege on service delivery. She is currently an independent trauma informed trainer and consultant, Advisor for Columbia School of Social work’s online program and Adjunct professor at Antioch University in Culver City, California. Sandra is an Advanced CCCT trainer and a Co-chair for NCTSN’s Cultural Consortium. She is particularly interested in providing culturally responsiveness training that is trauma informed and promotes personal reflection, social justice and policy reform.
CHAT Clinic at the Center for Psychological Services GSAPP, Rutgers University
The Children (and Families) Healing After Trauma (CHAT) clinic is an outpatient specialty clinic at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology of Rutgers University. We serve youth ages 3 to 21 years old and their families referred from New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency (DCP&P), local schools, mental health partners, and general community referrals from surrounding Rutgers University. Our mission is to support children and families impacted by trauma to rebuild their identity, establish a sense of safety and foster positive relationships with others. Using a multi-systemic, collaborative treatment approach, we hope to give each individual that has faced complex trauma an opportunity to process their experiences and look toward the future with hope. CHAT's specialty areas include adjustment to resource care, impact of trauma and loss, behavior management, sexual abuse and stress management for caregivers. Our clinic provides individual, family and/or group sessions utilizing trauma and attachment informed treatment modalities that include Trauma Focused- Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Attachment, Regulation and Competency (ARC) and Game-Based (CBT). CHAT attempts to overcome treatment barriers by providing transportation services to and from the clinic for DCP&P-involved families and in-home parent management training and family sessions, when needed. Additionally, CHAT provides mentors to clients to increase the opportunity for positive peer interactions.
Child Advocacy Center, Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters
The Child Advocacy Center (CAC) at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters (CHKD) is dedicated to providing expert forensic, mental health, and advocacy services to children who may have experienced maltreatment and trauma. CHKD’s CAC has been Accredited by National Children’s Alliance since 2003, and includes three child-friendly facilities in which law enforcement, child protection, medical and mental health, judicial, and victim advocacy professionals work together to provide a multidisciplinary, collaborative response to children and families when there is a concern that abuse or neglect has occurred. As the largest CAC in Virginia, the program serves approximately 1,500 children annually in the eastern region of Virginia (Hampton Roads) by identifying and providing trauma-informed and evidence-based services with the goal of preventing further trauma and strengthening resilience. As a NCTSN Community Treatment and Services Center, the CHKD CAC aims to increase access to and participation in evidence-based screening, assessment, treatment, and prevention services for children through the GRowing Evidence-based Assessment and Treatment (GREAT) for Children project. Providing these vital services for our diverse community of children ages 12 months-18 years will reduce health disparities and increase individual and family resilience. The project also aims to enhance the capacity of key stakeholders and multidisciplinary partners to identify, refer, and serve children who have experienced traumatic stress.
Child First, Inc.
Child First will create a national Center for Prevention and Early Trauma Treatment (CPETT), which will address persistent gaps in prevention, identification, reflective consultation, early intervention, and treatment for very young children and families exposed to trauma and adversity. The evidence-based, two-generation Child First (CF) model will be replicated and serve young children (prenatal-5) and families with the highest levels of traumatic stress and concrete challenges. It employs a two-pronged approach with home-based teams, consisting of a licensed mental health clinician and a care coordinator, to 1) decrease multiple environmental stressors through intensive care coordination, while building parental executive functioning and 2) establish a nurturing, responsive parent-child relationship, which heals trauma and enhances resilience. To help facilitate a comprehensive system of care, CPETT will train a diverse array of early childhood mental health providers in a range of other diagnostic and therapeutic modalities, including Child-Parent Psychotherapy, Circle of Security, and Diagnostic Classification: 0-5. CPETT will adapt CF’s extensive training curriculum to create a new, web-based Early Childhood Mental Health Trauma Training. We will also offer in-person/virtual training and reflective clinical consultation groups to multiple providers, including home visiting, early care and education, pediatrics, and child welfare. Our goal is to create a trauma-informed community in which all providers understand the impact of trauma on young children; increase development-enhancing, trauma-informed practices; identify children needing further treatment; and refer to relationship-based therapeutic interventions that address mental health needs and heal trauma.
Child Health and Development Institute (CHDI)
The Child Health and Development Institute’s (CHDI) mission is to ensure healthy outcomes for children by advancing effective policies, stronger systems, and innovative practices. CHDI functions as an intermediary organization in collaboration with treatment developers, researchers, state agencies, community-based providers, legislators, family advocacy organizations, and others to promote sustainable improvements to children’s health and behavioral health systems and services. CHDI’s ScreenTIME (Screen, Triage, Inform, Mitigate, Engage) project will improve early identification and support of children suffering from traumatic stress and connection to evidence-based treatment. ScreenTIME will develop and disseminate online trainings in screening best practices tailored for schools, primary care, early childhood, child welfare, and juvenile justice staff. The overall goal is to improve identification of children suffering from trauma as early as possible and connect them with support and services as needed. The primary activities of ScreenTIME will be to 1) create and disseminate interactive online trainings in screening best practices for staff in child-serving systems; 2) ensure all materials represent and support child and family input; and 3) disseminate these resources nationally through the NCTSN.
Child HELP Partnership at St. John's University
The Center will train and support the delivery of evidence-based, culturally adapted trauma services and interventions for children exposed to disaster, sexual abuse, family violence, race-based and immigration trauma (e.g., unaccompanied minors), COVID-19, and traumatic deaths. Major stakeholders in children’s mental health–school personnel, parents, and mental health providers–will work in partnership to create a continuum-of-care at 18 sites nationwide. The Center aims to serve underserved children (ages 4-17) from culturally diverse backgrounds (e.g., people of color, LGBTQ+) who have been exposed to trauma and are experiencing diverse mental health responses. Each site’s trauma team will have representatives from schools, parents, youth, mental health clinics, and other social systems (e.g., police) and be responsible for implementing a tiered approach to services and interventions. Tier 1 is system-level psychoeducation (i.e., Trauma 101) to create a trauma-informed culture and provide a foundation for trauma EBIs. Tier 2 is early intervention delivered after trauma (i.e., Skills for Psychological Recovery) to prevent the development of mental disorders. Tier 3 is treatment for traumatized children and their caregivers (i.e., Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Alternatives for Families-A Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy). After being trained and implementing the interventions, school counselors and mental health supervisors will participate in train-the-trainer programs to train others (e.g., teachers, clinicians).
Children and Youth Cabinet
In a climate of scarce behavioral health resources and great need, we raise and leverage public and private investments to deliver on resident-identified outcomes. We act as a nimble intermediary bringing together residents, public systems, community-based organizations, and funders. We’ve identified a suite of culturally-relevant evidence-based programs with proven successes that can be effectively implemented to achieve results. Our current programs that track specifically to symptoms of PTSD and were selected by the communities we serve, include: Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools: This evidence-based therapeutic intervention is designed to reduce anxiety, depression and the symptoms of post-traumatic stress (PTSD) in adolescents. Eighty percent of participating youth show improvement in PTSD symptoms. This program integrates the performing arts to engage youth in their own healing. The youth build social problem solving skills by reenacting difficult situations. They practice combating negative thoughts through activities such as "Helpful Other Thoughts". They also learn how to reduce anxiety through relaxation techniques. Act and Adapt: This evidence-based program reduces symptoms of acute depression in adolescents through school-based therapeutic groups. The youth learn how to cope with stress by solving problems within their control and – for problems outside of their control – by adapting. The program has been successfully implemented with Latinx and BIPOC adolescents in more than 40 schools in the Chicago Public School system and has been rigorously evaluated. Positive outcomes have included high retention, high participant satisfaction, and statistically lower depressive symptoms.
Children's Advocacy Center - University of Missouri - St. Louis
Children's Advocacy Services of Greater St. Louis is a University-based, multidisciplinary center that provides trauma-focused services to youth, families, and the community. We serve children impacted by all types of traumatic events including childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect. We also serve witnesses of domestic abuse and violent crime and children who have suffered accidents, natural disasters, and traumatic bereavement. The goal of our grant, Project CONTACT (Community Operations Network for Treatment After Childhood Trauma) is to partner with community agencies to increase participation in our Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention (CFTSI).
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Inc., Georgia Child Traumatic Stress Initiative
The Georgia Child Traumatic Stress Initiative is a partnership between the Stephanie V. Blank Center for Safe and Healthy Children (CSHC) and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of Emory University School of Medicine. The objectives of the project are to do the following: (1) provide trauma-informed services—including TraumaFocused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)—to children and adolescents in metropolitan Atlanta; (2) offer webinars on mental health topics to child service agencies in the Atlanta community; (3) provide training in TF-CBT and mentoring in the application of evidence-based practices to multiple small groups of mental health providers who serve child victims of abuse/neglect in rural and underserved areas of north Georgia; and (4) develop and pilot a TF-CBT telemental health service to provide therapy to traumatized children and their families in rural and underserved areas of Georgia.