The Center for Child Welfare Practice Innovation (CCWPI), New York University Grossman School of Medicine [1]
The Center for Child Welfare Practice Innovation (CCWPI) is an NCTSN center dedicated to advancing trauma-informed practices in the child welfare systems in the USA. CCWPI contributes to these advances by developing, evaluating, and disseminating innovative trauma-informed practices to agencies serving children and families in the child welfare system. Such practices include Trauma Systems Therapy (TST), a treatment model for traumatized children and their families, especially in cases of risk from children’s impulses (e.g., self-destructive behavior, aggression) or when children are at risk for maltreatment from their caregivers. Although TST has been widely disseminated outside the child welfare system, it has often been used as the primary trauma-informed treatment model in child welfare prevention, foster care, and residential programs. The Never Look Away Trauma Training Program (NLA-TTP) is a nine-module training program for professionals in child services systems to derive individualized understandings of children and family needs and provide interventions according to these needs. NLA-TTP is designed to engage clinicians and other providers to consider various decision points in care by illustrating principles of care through an animated video series focused on the care of two children and their families. A version of NLA-TTP is available for foster parents. CCWPI also operates a train-the-trainer program for those interested in becoming trainers in NLA-TTP. The Child Welfare Traumameter is an organizational practice assessment and improvement tool for child welfare agencies to improve the quality of their policies and practices for traumatized children and families in their care. CCWPI is available for training, consultation, and technical assistance to install these and other practice innovations for agencies serving children and families in the child welfare and other child services systems; and has provided such support for many NCTSN centers.