The National American Indian and Alaska Native Child Trauma Center TSA, Category II, located in the University of Iowa College of Public Health, Department of Community and Behavioral Health, within the Native Center for Behavioral Health. The Center's main focus is to increase national infrastructure for the Native and non-Native workforce to effectively prevent and reduce childhood trauma and increase wellness and resiliency among AI/AN children, adolescents, and their families. American Indian and Alaska Native people face traumas resulting from abuse, neglect, and household stressors. In addition, AI/AN children are also affected by racism, poverty, and the legacy of insidious historical oppression and trauma. Despite the elevated risk, there is limited empirical information to guide culturally appropriate treatments of trauma and related symptoms for this population. The National AI/AN TSA Center aims to identify, adapt, disseminate, and provide implementation support to the workforce serving AI/AN youth and their families impacted by trauma. We will offer support for service systems (e.g., schools, juvenile justice, child welfare, and healthcare settings) working with children. Anne Helene Skinstad, Ph.D., clinical psychologist educated in Norway, with focus on Childhood mental health disorders and trauma and have 25 years of experience working with behavioral health workforce, including substance use and mental health disorders in Native communities. Teresa Brewington, MBA, MEd, an enrolled member of The Coharie and descendent the Lumbe tribe, has worked for many years in the K - 12 school system as a teacher, counselor, and principal of a Native School and have experience working with Native children who have experienced Adverse Childhood Experiences.
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.
Muscogee Creek Nation
National American Indian and Alaska Native Child Trauma TSA Center, Department of Community and Behavioral Health, University of Iowa
National Child Trauma Workforce Institute, Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
The National Child Trauma Workforce Institute (NCTWI), hosted at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience, has a vision of raising the standard of care for trauma exposed children and families by raising the standard of trauma education and training of those who serve them. NCTWI will address the national child-serving workforce's need for trauma education by providing training, consultation and technical assistance to expand the use of the Core Curriculum on Childhood Trauma (CCCT), an evidence-based trauma training curriculum. The goals of UCCS-NCTWI are to 1) build the trauma response capacity of the US mental health workforce by expanding the number of trained CCCT facilitators across the NCTSN; 2) integrate the CCCT into trauma education within Psychology and Child Psychiatry training programs and across the professional lifespan; and 3) increase the impact of CCCT training on improved trauma-informed clinical and organizational practices by expanding long-term evaluation and identifying key training components and strategies.
National Children’s Advocacy Center
The mission of the National Children's Advocacy Center (NCAC) is to Model, Promote, and Deliver Excellence in Child Abuse Response and Prevention through Service, Education, and Leadership. The NCAC houses the only child-friendly setting for the multidisciplinary investigation and intervention of child sexual and severe physical abuse in Huntsville/Madison County, Alabama. The Madison County Multidisciplinary Team reviewed 813 cases in 2018, while the NCAC conducted more than 500 forensic interviews of children and provided more than 1,900 hours of therapy to survivors of child abuse. The NCAC is the birthplace of the Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) model; and since opening its doors more than 35 years ago has served as a model for more than 900 CACs operating throughout the United States and in 34 countries. More than 158,000 child abuse professionals from all 50 states and 179 countries have been trained by the NCAC with international training and technical assistance focusing on development of national policies providing for the protection of children, implementation of the multidisciplinary response (CAC) model for child abuse, and development of national training programs. The NCAC also operates the Southern Regional Children’s Advocacy Center (SRCAC), which provides training and technical assistance to CACs, Multidisciplinary Teams, and state Chapters within the 16-state Southeast region and the District of Columbia. The NCAC hosts the International Symposium on Child Abuse, which is attended by approximately 1,500 child abuse response professionals annually from around the world
National Crime Victims Research & Treatment Center, Medical University of South Carolina
Our NCTSI-II Center, Enhancing Equity, Quality and Impact of evidence-based Practices for Trauma using Technology (EQUIPTT), is housed within the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina. EQUIPTT aims to increase equitable access and quality of trauma-focused evidence-based interventions (EBIs) across diverse youth and families by (1) developing, disseminating and implementing technology-based scalable products and (2) serving as a national resource for training, education and technical assistance. EQUIPTT has four goals: (1) increase availability of technology-enhanced, evidence-based resources across the NCTSN; (2) build workforce capacity to deliver Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TFCBT) and Risk Reduction through Family Therapy (RRFT) for youth with traumatic stress and high-risk behavior; (3) disseminate technology-based resources to improve sustained delivery of trauma-focused EBIs; and (4) expand access to trauma-focused EBIs across service systems. Our strategies are to (1) support efforts to develop and disseminate technology-based products by providing consultation and creating a Technology Development Toolkit (TDT) for national dissemination; (2) build workforce capacity by conducting Learning Collaboratives supplemented by technology-assisted training and provider assistance tools in TFCBT, RRFT, and traumatic grief (CTGWeb) to address grief and loss, which has been exacerbated by COVID; and (3) launch mobile app-based EBIs to address PTSD and depression among disaster-affected youth and adapt to a broad array of traumatic events. Dissemination efforts will prioritize partnerships to expand reach into underserved populations.
National Initiative for Trauma Education and Workforce Development at UNC School of Social Work
The National Initiative for Trauma Education and Workforce Development at the UNC School of Social Work is committed to better enable mental health treatment providers to use common trauma-informed practice elements (CTIPE) in their treatment of traumatized youth and their families. The objectives are to (1) increase the capacity of clinicians at all NCTSN Category II and III sites to employ common trauma-informed practice elements in their treatment of traumatized youth and their families; (2) annually increase this capacity via a new course at 15-20 schools of social work reaching; and (3) strengthen and expand the national impact of the Center's initiatives through broad collaborations with NCTSN Centers, among mental health professionals, and across disciplines. These collaborations will further disseminate information about and best practices for trauma-related care among developers, practitioners, service providers, and consumers with a focus on reducing health disparities. To achieve these goals, we will develop a new intervention product, a case-based curriculum examining common trauma-informed practice elements that will form the foundation of 1) a free online training resource for mental health providers and 2) a 3-credit clinical graduate course for MSW programs. The new intervention product will build on existing resources in the NCTSN, specifically the Core Concepts training and common trauma informed practice elements and will prioritize agencies with a majority BIPOC client population and MSW programs in HBCUs. The national impact will be activated by a diverse 14-15-member Advisory Board consisting of representatives from youth trauma survivors and family members, students, faculty, practitioners.
Native American Health Center
NAHC will implement the National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative at our health centers located in Sobrante Park & Fruitvale/San Antonio neighborhoods of East Oakland, California with expansion in the greater Bay Area. Residents of our community are highly susceptible to experiencing trauma in their lifetime due to a combination of environmental & socioeconomic factors- including elevated rates of poverty, exposure to violence, drug addiction, racial discrimination, & limited health care access. According to 2018 Census data, rates within our clinic zip code compared to county averages show: unemployment (6.4% v 4%); residents that have received federal assistance within the past 12 months (20.9% v 7%); residents that do not have health care coverage (17.9% v 6.9%); & families that live at our below the federal poverty line (23.4% v 7.4%), all which contribute to increased trauma related mental health issues such as depression, anxiety & post-traumatic stress disorder. Though trauma is often believed to be experienced in adults, the stressful social & environmental factors experienced by children in early age is likely to cause disruptions in development which can lead to substance use, anxiety, depression as well as an increase of chronic health & mental health conditions as adults. As indicated by NAHC youth trauma screenings. Among 472 youth served among UFSA/Life & Madison SBHCs in 2018, 36% were screened for trauma with 8% identified as needing follow up by a clinician. Of the youth receiving depression screenings in 2018, 75% received positive screens, demonstrating need for additional clinical services. This demonstrates the need to provide youth with not only direct trauma informed treatment services, but culturally appropriate programming.
Network for Enhancing Wellness in Disaster-Affected Youth (NEW DAY)
The Network for Enhancing Wellness in Disaster-Affected Youth (NEW DAY) provides national expertise, training, and technical assistance on the behavioral health needs and intervention of youth in disaster-hit and disaster-prone communities. Under the direction of Dr. Jonathan Comer, NEW DAY works to improve professional knowledge, skill, adoption, and implementation of evidence-based, trauma-focused disaster services and supports for youth, with a primary emphasis on meaningfully reducing racial and ethnic disparities in post-disaster behavioral health and service provision. NEW DAY engages with school systems, youth-serving professionals, families, community agencies, stakeholder partners, and technology to broaden the reach and sustainability of supported behavioral health programs for trauma-exposed youth, including Psychological First Aid (PFA), Skills for Psychological Recovery (SPR), and Child-Adult Relationship Enhancement (CARE).
NeuroDevelopmental Science Center, Akron Children's Hospital
Akron Children's Hospital strives to raise awareness of the affect of traumatic stress and adversity on traumatized children and their families. This initiative will train medical health providers and staff on the physical and psychological consequences of experiencing adverse events and the importance of early identification. We also focus on building resiliency in those who work with traumatized children and families.
New York Presbyterian Hospital
The Family PEACE (Preventing Early Adverse Childhood Experiences) Trauma Treatment Center (FPTTC) at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital's Ambulatory Care Network works to help very young children and their families heal from experiences of family violence, abuse, and other forms of trauma. The program provides mental health services to children ages birth to five years of age (0-5), siblings (6-12), and caregivers who have been exposed to various forms of trauma. FPTTC is dedicated to improving the safety and well-being of children and families exposed to violence/abuse and breaking the intergenerational transmission of trauma through early identification and treatment. We believe in promoting inherent strength and authenticity of individuals and families by creating a safe, empowered community for people to feel seen, heard, and valued through self-awareness, cultural attunement, and spiritual sensitivity. FPPTC is committed to providing trauma-informed, culturally responsive programming that is rooted in anti-oppression principles. Individuals have intersectional identities and backgrounds that are integral to their trauma experience and healing journey. At the FPTTC, we use concepts from liberation psychology and ethno-healing to acknowledge the impact of oppression and racial trauma on families. Our goal is to align our interventions with the individual's cultural beliefs and values to help families form a healing narrative. Our clinic offers integrative therapies- spiritual counseling, creative arts, and somatosensory approaches. Further, we have intentionally made efforts to embed anti-racism and anti-oppression principles at all clinic levels, from hiring, training, policy/practice to clinical service delivery.