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Justice System Professionals

Children who come to the attention of the juvenile justice system are a challenging and underserved population. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network has developed resources to help juvenile justice professionals understand and provide trauma-focused services to these youth. These resources include tools and materials for building skills and increasing knowledge about childhood trauma to help judges, attorneys, law enforcement, probation officers, frontline residential staff, mental health personnel, and caregivers understand and respond to the needs of traumatized children. In addition to the NCTSN resources highlighted below, Justice System Professionals can learn more about creating trauma-informed Justice Systems in the Trauma-Informed Care section of this website.

NCTSN Resource

NCTSN Bench Cards for the Trauma-Informed Judge

Type: Special Resource

Provides judges with useful questions and guidelines to help make decisions based on the emerging scientific findings in the traumatic stress field. These bench cards assist judges and court-appointed professionals doing mental health assessment of children.

NCTSN Resource

Age-Related Reactions to a Traumatic Event

Type: Fact Sheet

Describes how young children, school-age children, and adolescents react to traumatic events and offers suggestions on how parents and caregivers can help and support them.

NCTSN Resource

What Is Child Traumatic Stress?

Type: Fact Sheet

Defines child traumatic stress. This fact sheet gives an overview of trauma, describes traumatic stress symptoms, and ways children may be impacted.

Partner-In Resource

Trauma ScreenTIME

Type: Website

Provides staff in child-serving systems with best practices for trauma screening. The online courses help child-serving staff identify and support children suffering from traumatic stress as early as possible and connect those in need with effective services. 

NCTSN Resource

NCTSN Trauma-Informed Organizational Assessment (TIOA) Course

Type: Special Resource

Helps organizations assess their current practices in the context of serving children and families who have experienced trauma. It is an important part of an organizational transformation process to create trauma-informed organizations.

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