For more than 25 years, UC Davis CAARE Center has provided evidence-based treatment to maltreated children in Sacramento County and contributed to the evidence base supporting the use of these interventions with this vulnerable population. While mental health services are available to children in foster care, they can take months to begin, they may not receive services without obvious symptoms, and services targeted at the child rarely include the biological parent. Additionally, birth parents are often reluctant to seek help for difficult visits for fear that it will reflect poorly upon their parenting or extend the child's time in care. Resource caregivers also receive limited support for navigating the biological parent-resource parent relationship and may struggle with helping children cope with conflicted feelings and difficult visit interactions. The current Category III project screens children for trauma and comorbid disorders and provides an adaptation of the brief (7-session) Parent-Child Care (PC-CARE) intervention to all biological parents of children aged 1-10 years participating in visits. The adaptation combines three services: PC-CARE with biological parents to increase access to services and support good quality visits, consultation to resource parents around the visitation process and children's responses to trauma, and an online PC-CARE resource to promote generalization of skills to support children's well-being. PC-CARE offers a novel approach to supporting reunification and reducing children's trauma-related symptoms by providing empirically supported coping and parenting skills at a key point during the family's transition, without the family's need to seek out or wait for a referral for intervention.
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.
UC Davis/ Pediatrics/ CAARE Diagnostic & Treatment Center
UCLA - Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress (CA)
The UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and the Duke University School of Medicine jointly host the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress (NCCTS), leading the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) in transforming treatment and services to meet the needs of traumatized children and their families across the United States. Through extensive expertise, resources, organizational experience, and vision, the NCCTS guides and supports the NCTSN. The NCCTS also provides strong technical assistance to support Network data collection, cross-site collaborative activities, product development and dissemination, training, adoption and adaptation of interventions, communications, policy analysis and initiatives, and program evaluation.
UCLA-Duke Adolescent Suicide/Self Harm & Substance Abuse Prevention (CA)
The UCLA-Duke Adolescent Suicide/Self Harm & Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP) will serve as a resource for information related to safety, suicidal/self-harm behaviors, and substance use among trauma-exposed youths. We prioritize services for emergency/acute care and brief time-limited treatments, adapting for the trauma-exposed population and then disseminating two brief evidence-based interventions for suicide/self-harm risk (Emergency/Family Intervention for Suicide Prevention; SAFETY) and two for substance abuse (Screening/Motivational Interviewing(MI); CBT with MI/optional contingency management). To inform and develop optimal service strategies for improving outcomes for trauma-exposed youths, the Center will also work to develop and strengthen trauma informed care that integrates care for adolescent behavioral health within primary care, emergency, and other medical settings, as well as other mental health, school, and community settings. We will utilize surveillance data on suicide/self-harm and substance abuse risk in the NCTSN population to guide this work. Intervention training and dissemination will include technology-enhanced tools/materials and data-informed supervision systems and clinical dashboards to enhance quality of care and client outcomes. Through trainings/dissemination activities, the Center aims to serve diverse youths, across racial and ethnic groups. sexual identities and orientations, socioeconomic groups, and address needs of youths in military families. Our Center goal is to support providers and service systems in addressing safety issues and substance misuse effectively, thereby enhancing the benefits of other treatments that specifically target post-traumatic stress disorders/reactions.
University of CA Los Angeles Department of Pediatrics
Over the past five years, we collaboratively developed PATTeR (Pediatric Approach to Trauma, Treatment and Resilience) as a successful foundation for transforming pediatrics into a trauma-informed and responsive system of care. PATTeR is a partnership of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMass), and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Guided by its National Advisory Board (NAB) and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, PATTeR incorporated the latest science from multiple fields (resilience, attachment, parenting, neuroscience, evidence-based trauma-informed mental health interventions) into an evidence-based and practical curriculum for pediatricians. PATTeR developed, implemented and evaluated a novel trauma-informed care (TIC) curriculum for pediatricians; adapted the curriculum to resident education; and piloted a learning collaborative focused on implementing TIC into pediatric practice. PATTeR has introduced 30,000 professionals to TIC and provided in-depth training to 800 physicians, including >100 residents. Completers of in-depth training reported an average increase in proficiency of 1.8 levels on a scale of 1 to 6 on TIC elements (eg, serve and return, predictable compassionate availability, co-regulation). We continue to seek funding to continue the work.
University of California, Davis/ Dept. of Pediatrics/ CAARE Center
UC Davis CAARE Center's PCIT & PC-CARE Training Center has provided quality training, consultation and technical assistance to agencies and individuals in understanding how trauma impacts children and their families since 1999 and now provides training and trainer certification in a brief parenting intervention, Parent-Child Care (PC-CARE), using these same empirically supported strategies. There is a strong demand for training in trauma-informed, evidence-based parenting treatments suitable for young children and a deficit of mental health providers. At the same time, mental health service needs among children, particularly in vulnerable low-income and immigrant populations, is increasing. Thus, many agencies look to paraprofessionals, home visitors, and case managers to provide services to children and families in need. Whereas training and implementation of EBTs has become more effective and engaging for mental health professionals, training in trauma-informed care and practices for paraprofessionals has lagged. This Category II project is designed to overcome these barriers to training paraprofessionals and non-mental health professionals that work with traumatized children with training in PC-CARE and PC-CARE Toolbox. PC-CARE is a brief, effective parenting intervention that demonstrates high retention rates (90%) and can be delivered by non-licensable mental health providers. It provides an early and rapid screening, assessment, and intervention for traumatized children in diverse settings. PC-CARE Toolbox, for workers in child-serving but non-mental health settings, uses a web-based interactive platform to teach about child development, child trauma, and PC-CARE skills, as well as consultation and documentation to give experiential training and support.
University of California, Los Angeles (Szilagyi)
The Pediatric Approach to Trauma, Treatment and Resilience (PATTeR) is a multi-site project. The three project sites include the American Academy of Pediatrics, the University of Massachusetts Medical School and UCLA's Section on Developmental Studies. The focus of PATTeR is to develop curricula focused on trauma and resilience specifically for pediatricians who are the first child professionals family encounter and the most frequent gate-keepers to subspecialty care, including trauma-informed mental health care, and to supportive community-based services. During year one, we will focus on developing two levels of curricula: Trauma Aware and Trauma Informed. Through the AAP, which is the professional home of over 60,000 pediatricians across the United States, we will recruit pediatricians serving children and families in a variety of settings but focus on those serving certain high risk groups: those living in poverty, involved with child welfare or social services, those living in resource-poor areas and military families. Case-based learning designed to lead to practice change will occur in a group on-line format (using ECHO Technology) with an expert panel. Trauma Aware training will occur over 6 sessions. Pediatricians seeking to become trauma training resources in their own communities or AAP chapters will complete the more detailed Trauma-Informed training over 12 sessions. We will also recruit residency program leaders through the Academic Pediatrics Association to engage in both curricula since they are the educators who will transform pediatric residency education. We will also infuse curricula into multiple AAP education venues and anticipate reaching thousands of pediatricians during the grant cycle.
University of California, San Francisco, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Areas of expertise is infant/early childhood trauma, including child maltreatment, domestic violence, loss of a loved one; community violence; traumas related to undocumented migration and refugee status; war and terrorism. We focus on the impact of early childhood trauma on child-parent relationship and family functioning as a risk factor that derails healthy developmental trajectories and increases the likelihood of mental health problems. Activities involve developing, testing, implementing, and disseminating evidence-based and promising relationship-based trauma treatments and interventions, including Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), Perinatal Child-Parent Psychotherapy (P-CPP), Attachment Vitamins, and Semillas the Apego. The site has specific expertise in Latinx populations. It provides services and develops materials and products in English and Spanish.
University of Southern California Adolescent Trauma Training Center, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck School of Medicine
The University of Southern California Adolescent Trauma Training Center (USC-ATTC) continues to provide virtual and in-person trainings nation-wide and at our project site in Torrance, California focused on the assessment and treatment of complex trauma in ethnically diverse, socially marginalized adolescents using our evidence-based model, Integrative Treatment of Complex Trauma for Adolescents (ITCT-A). Monthly webinars are provided on specific trauma-related topics and include presentations on trauma treatment using teletherapy, attachment and family systems issues associated with ITCT-A, treating risky and compulsive behavior, addressing impacts of racism in trauma treatment, self-care and secondary trauma, supervision within ITCT-A, and treating trauma with mindfulness. Our website: attc.usc.edu includes training webinars, six treatment and implementation guides, assessment measures, tools, and other resources associated with ITCT-A that can be downloaded free-of-charge. Clinicians can also become ITCT-A certified by attending and presenting cases on the monthly nation-wide consultation conference calls.
Villaverde, Vivien
I am a Clinical Associate Professor in the Field Education Department of the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. I graduated from Columbia University School of Social Work with a Master of Science in Social Work and am currently an EdD candidate at the USC Rossier School of Education. I hold licenses as an LCSW and a PPSC. I worked as a School Social Worker at LAUSD for 10 years prior to becoming an academic. My area of expertise in schools was in collaborative care for multi-systemic youths. As an academic, I became a member of the Treatment and Services Adaptation Center for Resiliency, Hope, and Wellness in Schools and Communities as a Support Specialist. I provided consultation and training on trauma-informed interventions, disaster/crisis response, and trauma-responsive program development. I am a national/international trainer for BounceBack, SSET, TISE, PFA, STAT, and Motivational Interviewing. Additionally, I contributed to the development of TISE and PFA and consulted on the updates for SSET. In June 2021, I became the Program Director for the TSA Center for Schools. I have an extensive background in multi-systems collaboration within education systems. My expertise includes evidence-informed and evidence-based intervention training and consultation with schools and districts. I also support, consult, and coach on trauma-responsive organizational transformation working with school leaders throughout the country in creating and implementing multi-tiered system change strategies. I worked internationally partnering with Canada, the Philippine Department of Education, NGOs, and the National Center for School Mental Health in South Korea to enhance trauma programming and response to crises and disasters. Further, I have made presentations on our trauma-informed work at various national and international conferences and currently partner with the California Department of Education in their trauma-informed projects.
Walsh, Cambria LCSW
My career has been focused on the areas of secondary traumatic stress, trauma-informed systems, child trauma treatment, child abuse, child welfare and domestic violence. I have past experience as a Project Director of several state and national initiatives, including a Cat II center of the NCTSN focused on Child Welfare. I began my career as a mental health therapist working with traumatized children and their families. I am one of the developers of the Child Welfare Trauma Training Toolkit (3rd Edition) released in April 2020. I have created numerous resources, curricula and consulting models related to trauma-informed systems. I have knowledge of implementation science and adult learning and years of experience providing training and technical assistance to child serving organizations and child welfare systems on trauma-informed change and secondary traumatic stress. I am a founding member of the Secondary Traumatic Stress Consortium and an associate with TEND Academy.