Colorado

Through the Identifying Child and Youth Trauma in the Court System Project, Denver Juvenile and Family Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities and the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect will develop and implement a standard protocol to identify, screen, assess, and treat children and adolescents who have been exposed to trauma and who are children of a court-involved, substance-abusing parent. The project will serve a target population of 200 Denver families with children and youth aged 4-17, as part of a comprehensive prevention and intervention approach for families involved in the city's justice system. Services to the target population—55% Latino, 20% African American, 23% Anglo, and 2% other—will include Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) to treat trauma and trauma-related symptoms. The project will also work collaboratively in Denver and across the Network to develop and promote effective practices and services including trainings for and collaboration with Denver's treatment, law enforcement, and justice communities.

The Kempe Evidence-Based Mental Health Initiative will be developed by the Kempe Imhoff Clinic, which provides mental health services to trauma-exposed children and families referred from several community sites. Project goals include: 1) continuing clinical services at the clinic and expanding the evidence-based treatments (EBTs) offered by clinical staff, e.g., Alternatives for Families­A Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (AF-CBT); 2) increasing capacity of the clinic’s military partners to identify children and families in need of mental health services, and developing specialty services for military families in the clinic; and 3) expanding the Colorado Evidence-Based Training Initiative to train mental health professionals (civilian and military) and child welfare professionals in trauma-informed, evidence-based treatment. The program expects to provide mental health services to 1,540 children/families and training to 760 professionals throughout the Western Mountain region.

The Prevention, Empowerment, and Resiliency Collaborative (PERC) Center at Colorado State University will be established to address the needs of children, youth, and families from four neighborhoods where trauma is precipitated by chronic poverty, community violence, child maltreatment, and the immigration experience. PERC will advance the provision of culturally appropriate, evidence-based treatment and care for youth impacted by trauma by collaborating with NCTSN treatment centers, mental health organizations, and child welfare systems to implement and evaluate two evidence-based trauma interventions: Trauma Adapted-Family Connections (TA-FC) and Culturally Modified Trauma-Focused Treatment (CM-TFT). PERC is grounded in the principle of building on the strengths and developing the capacity of youth, families, and neighborhoods to facilitate recovery and promote resilience; and will emphasize project accountability and continuous assessment of objectives and outcomes. Goals include developing a system that engages stakeholders in decision-making about implementation of trauma-informed services for youth; and creating a sustainable trauma-informed service delivery approach in serving hard-to-reach, underserved, at-risk diverse populations in Larimer County. PERC expects to serve 286-360 youth.

The Gang Reduction Initiative of Denver - Trauma Treatment Project (GRID-TTP) in Denver, Colorado, will target youth aged 11-17, primarily African American and Latino/Latina, who are gang involved or at risk of gang involvement, and who reside in three Northeast Denver neighborhoods with high rates of community, domestic, and gang-related violence. GRID-TTP will be part of a citywide effort to reduce gang violence and to address the impact of this violence on city residents, especially Denver's youth. The project, implemented by a consortium of Denver government, community, and faith-based agencies, led by the Mental Health Center of Denver (MHCD), is based on the Comprehensive Gang Model developed by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. GRID-TTP will deliver two primary interventionsCognitive Behavioral Interventions in Schools (CBITS) and Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress (SPARCS)in three middle school, one high school, and five recreation/community centers in the targeted Denver neighborhoods. During the two-year project period, 140 unduplicated youth will be served, some of whom, along with their families, will be referred to other MHCD services.

Prior funding to the Mental Health Center of Denver supported the Family Trauma Treatment Program, which providd access for low-income children and families to community mental health services through a network of more than thirty locations throughout the Denver area. The program improved services and treatment for children who experienced trauma by implementing and evaluating evidence-based interventions in a variety of community settings including schools, shelters, juvenile detention centers, day care centers, and neighborhood clinics.

The Aurora Mental Health Center is a nonprofit community mental health center that serves more than 5,000 people annually in Aurora, Colorado. Services are provided in eight counseling and specialized service centers; seven residential facilities; twenty-five public schools; two county departments of human services; and in homes, foster homes, and at other community locations. The center helps abused and neglected children and children who have witnessed interpersonal violence. The center's Intercept program works with children with mental illness and developmental disabilities, an underserved population with an extremely high prevalence of abuse, and has adapted Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) for children with developmental disabilities.