Beyond the ACE Score: Perspectives from the NCTSN on Child Trauma and Adversity Screening and Impact
Provides an overview of the concepts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and childhood trauma, highlights the gaps that remain in our understanding of the impact of childhood trauma and adversity on mental and physical health, and describes how these terms (childhood trauma vs. adversity) differ. This resource also offers providers, family advocates, and policymakers recommendations for ways in which ACEs and other childhood trauma-related concepts and resources can be combined to advance care for children and families who have experienced trauma.
New! Introducing the NCTSN Sex Trafficking Webpages
Child sex trafficking affects children of all ages, races, and socio-economic circumstances and occurs in urban, suburban, rural communities, land-based nations, and other tribal communities. The new webpages provide information about child sex trafficking, including basic definitions, things you might not know, risk factors, and its impact. They also include several resources that offer information about who is vulnerable to trafficking, experiences that youth who have been trafficked have gone through, and misconceptions and facts to clarify this complex issue.
Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Can Experience Traumatic Stress:
A Fact Sheet for Parents and Caregivers
Offers parents and caregivers information about how children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) experience traumatic stress. This fact sheet provides information on the intersection of IDD, trauma, and mental wellness; what intellectual and developmental disabilities are; how trauma might impact children with IDD; why children with IDD are at higher risk for trauma exposure; and how trauma service providers should partner with parents and caregivers.
The Traumatic Impact of COVID-19 on Children and Families: Current Perspectives from the NCTSN
Outlines some of the traumatic impacts that COVID-19 has had on children and families. This report breaks down some of the pandemic challenges that children, families, and child-serving agencies have faced and describes the NCTSN's response to COVID-19.
New Podcast Episode!
Trauma-Informed Care for Unaccompanied Immigrant Youth: Children and Youth Cabinet of Rhode Island
Showcases the work of the Children and Youth Cabinet of Rhode Island with unaccompanied and immigrant children, primarily in school-based settings. This podcast emphasizes the importance of individual and family voices in trauma treatment, and we hear from family members who participated in Familias Unidas, an evidence-based program focused on parenting skills.
New! Surviving and Thriving: Conversations About Community Violence and COVID-19: Community Violence and Civil Unrest: Youth Responses to Complex Harm and Collective Healing
Date/Time: Wednesday, May 12 at 9:00 AM PT/ 12:00 PM ETSpeakers: Nancy Fitzpatrick, WRITER LLC, Project Director, Trauma Specialist; Christine Bowen, Family Partner; Kayla Morgan, Resilient Roots; Tara Gremillion Lark, NCC, LPC, Mental Health Specialist, Son of a Saint; Jeremy Davis, Program Director, Son of a Saint; Son of a Saint Youth Panelists; Meghan Graham, LCSW, NCCTS, Facilitator; Lindsay Lee, LCSW, Assistant Director, Restorative Justice Partnership
This webinar will feature a conversation about creating awareness regarding youth responses to community violence, civil unrest, and societal history of marginalization and racial trauma. It will also share creative strategies and develop practices to help youth challenge these perpetual traumas through trusting relationships, radical healing, and supported action.
New! Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) Who Have Experienced Trauma: Building Resilience in Families Contending With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
Date/Time: Wednesday, May 26 at 9:00 am PT/ 12:00 pm ETSpeakers: William Saltzman, PhD, Professor, Director of the Counseling Psychology graduate program at California State University, Long Beach, lead author of the FOCUS Family Resilience Program; Daniel Hoover, PhD, ABPP, Director of Psychology Training—Center for Child and Family Traumatic Stress at Kennedy Krieger Institute; Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; Valentina Stoycheva, PhD, Senior Psychologist at the Feinberg Division of the Unified Behavioral Health Center for Military Veterans and Their Families, Northwell Health; Founder and Director of STEPS – Stress & Trauma Evaluation and Psychological Services
This webinar will introduce the FOCUS Family Resiliency Program, a brief evidence-based intervention that is among the most widely disseminated family-based programs for military populations, and will discuss general issues in adapting it with families who have a child with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). It will introduce overall considerations in working with families and children with IDD, as well as how they may apply to the administration of FOCUS. This will be illustrated with a case description in which the FOCUS Program was adapted for a military family with a teenage daughter diagnosed with autism. The intervention was conducted several years after father’s deployment and during a period in which the family reported high levels of distress. We will discuss ways in which the family benefitted from the protocol, as well as what adjustments to the FOCUS modules proved effective in working with a child on the spectrum.
Now Available on Demand!
Helping a Young Mother Experiencing Loss Navigate the Challenges of Parenting a Toddler
Viewers meet Jayda, a young mother who is battling feelings of inadequacy as the parent of a toddler. Jayda is struggling to balance life’s responsibilities while experiencing loss and loneliness following the incarceration of her partner, Trevor.
Issues of Race, Equity, and Social Justice:
Addressing the Impact of Racial Trauma and Inequality on Ethnic Minority Families
Focuses on issues of race, equity, and social justice to address the impact of racial trauma and inequality on ethnic minority families. This guide includes unique challenges within minority communities at the individual, relationship, community and societal levels as well as recommendations to address disparities and challenges unique to ethnic minorities and underserved families. It also includes resources for caregivers, mental health providers, school staff, and communities to support individuals around issues of race and social justice.
New Policy Brief! Advancing Equity in Behavioral Health Through Telemedicine
Jointly authored by staff from CHDI, the Village for Families and Children, Connecticut Children's, and Yale New Haven Health Center/Yale Medicine, this policy brief examines the value of permanently expanding telemedicine to support the fundamental delivery of health care and includes four recommendations to support the long-term effectiveness of telemedicine services for children and families.
RECENT JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS
Authored by Alisa B Miller, Osob M Issa, Emily Hahn, Naima Y Agalab, and Saida M Abdi, Developing Advisory Boards within Community-based Participatory Approaches to Improve Mental Health among Refugee Communities aims to extend current knowledge by examining best practices for use of community advisory boards (CABs) and youth advisory boards (YABs) to achieve mental health equity among refugee communities. In order to improve outcomes in refugee communities, public health and mental health research and interventions should aim to engage refugees as active partners on advisory boards. Employing trauma-informed care principles through cultural humility, authentic engagement and power-sharing, recognition of the stigma of mental illness and mental health care, respect for community norms and preferences, and acknowledgement of acculturative and generational differences within refugee communities epitomize best practices in establishing and maintaining meaningful community advisory boards.
The Urban Youth Trauma Center: A Trauma‑Informed Continuum for Addressing Community Violence Among Youth Contemporary written by Jaleel Abdul‑Adil and Liza M. Suárez, promotes a trauma-informed continuum of prevention-to-intervention services that combines community-based and clinic-based manualized protocols designed to reduce and prevent community violence for youth and families at The Urban Youth Trauma Center (UYTC) . Based on a socio-ecological model, UYTC has the main goals of addressing community violence and related traumatic stress as well as co-occurring conditions of substance abuse and disruptive behavior problems in urban youth by: (1) raising public awareness; (2) disseminating specialized trauma-informed training; and (3) mobilizing service system coalitions. UYTC employs this evidence-based yet flexible structure for disseminating, implementing, and evaluating trauma-informed training as a means of contributing to the reduction and prevention of community violence for low-income urban minority youth and families who bear the biggest burden of this current crisis.
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This project was funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The views, policies, and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of SAMHSA or HHS.
