The Center for Child Trauma Assessment, Services, and Systems Integration (CCTASSI) at Northwestern University offers national expertise on addressing the complex, developmental effects of trauma for system-involved youth and developing trauma-informed, child-serving systems and agencies. Our target population includes frontline and other providers in child welfare and juvenile justice and the youth and families served, focusing on minority youth and subpopulations at-risk due to systemic oppression and racial trauma. This includes racial and ethnic minority immigrants and refugees (I/R), multisystem involved youth (MSIY), transition age youth (TAY), and commercially sexually exploited (CSE) youth. Our goals are: 1) Increase awareness, knowledge, and skill of frontline providers to identify and respond to complex, developmental effects of trauma; 2) Develop comprehensive, system-wide trauma-informed services in child-serving settings; 3) Increase capacity for trauma-informed, cross-system coordination for MSIY; 4) Increase providers' awareness, knowledge, and skills to prevent and respond to youth and families impacted by systemic trauma, including oppression, disparities, racism, and other forms of identity-based discrimination; 5) Increase provider understanding of and responsiveness to the unique needs of subpopulations of youth and families impacted by complex, developmental trauma, including I/R, CSE, and TAY. Our activities focus on adaptation and dissemination of evidence-supported, trauma-informed approaches and curricula (including Think Trauma), and specialized training/consultation to support systems transformation. We also work to increase provider knowledge and enhance responses to systemic trauma and oppression through our films on TAY and Race & Trauma.
Northwestern University/Center for Child Trauma Assessment, Services and Systems Integration
Residential Child Care Project/College of Human Ecology
The “Creating Conditions for Change - Therapeutic Foster Care” project strives to improve the quality of therapeutic foster care (TFC), an essential undertaking as the Family First Prevention Services Act restrictions will increase the number and acuity of children placed in TFC. The goals are: 1) increase Therapeutic Foster Parents (TFPs) access to training that improves their capacity to meet their children’s trauma-specific needs, 2) increase the capacity of agency staff to support and mentor TFPs as they apply new skills and knowledge regarding trauma-informed care, and 3) increase the capacity of voluntary and public agencies to train, support, and retain qualified TFPs in their TFC programs. Two existing programs – the Therapeutic Crisis Intervention for Families (TCIF) and Children and Residential Experiences: Creating Conditions for Change (CARE) - will be adapted, integrated, and updated based on a review of current scientific literature and stakeholder focus groups. CARE, a trauma-informed, evidence-based program model provides a set of evidence-informed principles that emphasize building developmental relationships, maintaining trauma-sensitive environments, and working effectively with biological families. TCIF is an evidence-informed curriculum that prepares foster parents to therapeutically prevent, de-escalate, or manage challenging behaviors. To improve accessibility, both TFP and Staff trainings will include materials to facilitate learning in three modalities: in-person training, live virtual training, and self-paced E-learning. Training a cadre of 240 3C-TFC Trainers will accelerate the adoption of this new trauma-informed, relationship-focused program in agencies nationwide.
School of Social Work
The Complex Trauma Training Consortium (CTTC) is a national trainer-training and workforce development initiative that will establish sustainable expertise in complex trauma understanding, assessment, and treatment within each of the 50 US states, the 5 territories, DC, and the four largest US metropolitan areas. The CTTC will create a self-sustainable network of over 200 state and territory-based trainers across 60 affiliate organizations nationwide, increasing access to resources and addressing behavioral health disparities in underserved areas with historically limited NCTSN presence. The 20-module, 40-hour CTTC curriculum spans a comprehensive range of topics, including the intersection of complex trauma with such adverse life experiences such as ancestral trauma, systemic racism, and substance abuse, and emphasizes the effects of complex trauma on high-risk and marginalized groups including immigrants, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ youth and families. The CTTC will conduct over 1,000 training events, delivering training to over 20,000 multidisciplinary providers, consumer and allied professionals nationwide. The CTTC is a partnership between Adelphi University, Alaska Behavioral Health, the Foundation Trust, and the University of Chicago, and is comprised of a faculty of over two dozen subject matter experts diverse in race, culture, language, geography and lived experience.
Simmons University School of Social Work
Texas Christian University/Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development
The Center for the Adaptation and Implementation of Trust-based Relational Intervention (CAIT) is located in the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University. CAIT aims to provide national expertise in the training and implementation of Trust-based Relational Intervention (TBRI) and to support the continuum of care in child welfare and juvenile justice systems through specialized adaptations of TBRI. TBRI is an attachment-based, trauma-informed, whole-child approach to meeting the needs of children and youth who have experienced early adversity, toxic stress, and/or relational trauma. The TBRI model was developed at TCU to address the effects of trauma through three sets of practice principles: Connecting, Empowering, and Correcting. CAIT will address current gaps in trauma treatment, service delivery, and workforce development through (1) the development of an integrated trauma treatment model incorporating trauma assessment with current TBRI intervention practices; (2) the specialized adaptation of TBRI training and consultation for delivery in distinct service settings (child welfare & juvenile justice) and to be appropriate for different caregiver roles and diverse family structures (bio parents, resource parents, residential direct care staff); and (3) strategic collaboration to equip the child/youth-serving workforce through the NCTSN and through a wide established network of practitioners in the field.
The Baker Center For Children and Families
Judge Baker Children's Center (Judge Baker; an affiliate of Harvard Medical School) is a non-profit multi-service mental health and special education organization that serves children by promoting their developmental, emotional, and intellectual well-being. With over a century of proven leadership in children's mental health issues, Judge Baker helps children and families chart their own best course to grow and thrive. Judge Baker is nationally recognized as a leader in children's mental health training and education. We work to create lasting improvements in the quality of mental health care and other services for all children and families by disseminating evidence-based practices (such as MATCH, PCIT, and TF-CBT); interventions that have been proven to be effective to treat targeted behavioral health problems in children and families. Our expert training staff work collaboratively with families, service providers, schools, state agencies, academic institutions, and funding organizations to help ensure that all children and families have access to the highest quality evidence-based psychotherapy services. We translate the most cutting-edge research and proven strategies for helping children and families into sustainable practice changes in real world settings. By using thoughtful, evidence-based, and carefully planned implementation strategies, we work to close the gap between research and practice. In addition to providing high quality training to providers around the country, Judge Baker also provides direct outpatient and community-based services in the greater Boston community.
Trauma and Community Resilience Center
Over the past two decades, our center has developed, adapted and disseminated evidence-informed trainings, resources, and intervention models with refugee and immigrant youth that support providers across diverse community and service-system settings. This includes Trauma Systems Therapy for Refugees (TST-R), an evidence-based multi-tier intervention that is effective in both engaging and treating traumatized refugee and immigrant youth. The purpose of this project is to provide national expertise on trauma-informed services for refugee and immigrant children and their families, and to support the continued adaptation and widespread dissemination of Trauma Systems Therapy for Refugees (TST-R), an empirically-supported clinical and organizational treatment model. The TCRC will provide widely-accessible training on trauma-informed best practices with refugee and immigrant children, and serve as a resource for providers working with other traumatized populations.
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 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.