Supporting Children and Teens During this Holiday Season
Offers parents and caregivers strategies and ideas for supporting children and teens during the holiday season. This fact sheet provides tips that parents can use to talk to their children and teens about how they are feeling and about changes to holiday celebrations and traditions. It also shares tips that families can use to make this holiday season feel special, including creative ways in which families can stay connected to loved ones and friends. Ideas for self-care and additional resources are also included in the fact sheet.

NCTSN Resources Related to Understanding Child Traumatic Stress
Serves as a guide for child-serving professionals and families new to the information available through the NCTSN including an overview of the NCTSN, along with a brief introduction to child traumatic stress, its causes, and consequences.

Parenting in a New Context Podcast Series: Strategies for Practitioners Supporting Refugee and Immigrant Caregivers
Presents a series of practical discussions hosted by the Refugee Trauma and Resilience Center, Center for Resilient Families and National Child Traumatic Stress Network. In this new podcast miniseries, speakers will discuss how practitioners can enhance their skills and raise their standard of care to refugee and immigrant caregivers and families who are adjusting to a new culture and may have experienced potentially traumatic events. Mental health providers who work with immigrant and refugee communities are often in search of strategies to more effectively engage, serve, and support these caregivers and families. Cultural and contextual differences require providers to adapt or reconsider common parenting interventions when working with refugee and immigrant caregivers. While there are research-based “best practices” for most effectively helping refugee and immigrant caregivers, most practitioners do not receive substantial specialized training in these practices.

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Launch of the New NCTSN Podcast Series!
The NCTSN is excited to announce a new podcast series that brings together perspectives from our vast network of trauma experts – frontline providers, family members, researchers, and national partners – to deliver monthly episodes that range in topic from emerging issues in the field, foundational topics, and issues affecting certain populations.

Episode One - Trauma-Informed Care for Unaccompanied Immigrant Youth: Alliance for Inclusion and Prevention
This first conversation with NCTSN members serving unaccompanied immigrant youth and other forms of migration related separation features Susan Lovett, LCSW, and Dorys Lemus, a former unaccompanied child, from the Alliance for Inclusion and Prevention (AIP) in Boston, Massachusetts. They share experiences and lessons learned from implementing a school-based trauma treatment program and highlight the role of a cultural liaison in working with youth who have experienced migration-related trauma.

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Reminder: Complete the Current PFA Online Course before December 18, 2020!
This course is currently under development and will be launching soon on the Learning Center. If you are in the process of taking PFA Online, please make sure to complete the current course by December 18, 2020. After this date, it will be unavailable until the updated PFA Online course launches. In addition, remember to download all certificates of completion before December 18, 2020. If you have any questions regarding PFA Online, please contact help@nctsn.org.

 

New Webinar Now Available on Demand! Separation, Immigration, and Developmental Trauma in the Lives of Children and Families

Speakers: Rocio Chang, PsyD, UConn Health, Assistant Professor/Clinical, Department of Psychiatry, Co-I, Center for the Treatment of Developmental Trauma Disorders; Carmen Rosa Noroña, LICSW, MsEd, CEIS, Child Witness to Violence Project; Maureen Allwood, PhD, Associate Professor, John Jay College, City University of New York; Jenna Salek, LCSW, Heartland Alliance Marjorie Kovler Center; Julian Ford, PhD, UConn Health, Professor of Psychiatry and Law/ Clinical Department of Psychiatry; PI, Center for the Treatment of Developmental Trauma Disorders (CTDTD)

In this webinar, viewers meet Soledad, a 14-year-old girl who has recently been released from her first psychiatric hospitalization after an attempted suicide. Soledad is the oldest of five children. Currently, she lives with two of her siblings in a foster home while her other two siblings were sent to a different home. Soledad’s mother was detained by ICE after physically attacking Soledad during what seemed to be a psychotic episode. Soledad is worried about her mother and her two younger siblings, whom she has not seen since they separated. This is Soledad’s first session scheduled by her welfare worker.

New CDC Resources! Coping After a Natural Disaster: Resources and Information for Teens
After a natural disaster, it is normal to feel different and strong emotions. To better help teenagers who have experienced a natural disaster cope, the CDC has developed a series of resources for teens, including videos, social media graphics, and posters. Parents of teens, mental health professionals, educators, school administrators, faith-based organizations, and others who work closely with teenagers can share these resources in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Find first-person videos of teens’ personal stories, along with posters, social media graphics, and other coping resources, at www.cdc.gov/disasters/teens. Materials are available in English and Spanish.

The Hero's Mask: Helping Children with Traumatic Stress
A Resource for Educators, Counselors, Therapists, Parents and Caregivers
Teachers, counselors, therapists, parents and caregivers can use this novel and guidebook to help children, families and communities that have experienced traumatic stress and to promote resilience. The novel encourages children to learn about everyday heroes and what helps them to succeed despite adversity. The accompanying guidebook provides practical advice and strategies for using the novel in classrooms, counseling, therapy and families to spark conversations around difficult topics of loss and trauma and to strengthen and renew emotionally supportive relationships for distressed children. These two books provide a toolkit for helping children and caring adults understand the impact of traumatic stress and what can help them to recover and increase resilience after stressful experiences. 

RECENT JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS

Written by Laurel J. Kiser, Alisa B. Miller, Megan A. Mooney, Rebecca Vivrette, and Sara R. Davis, Integrating Parents With Trauma Histories Into Child Trauma Treatment: Establishing Core Components identifies core components of parent/caregiver integration into evidence-based child trauma treatment models, specifically those parents/caregivers who have experienced trauma themselves. The Parent/Caregiver Trauma and Healing Coordinating Group (PCTHCG) of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network examined existing scholarly literature, gathered input from clinical experts and parent partners, and assessed child trauma treatments. Eleven core components were identified through pooled sources of the available literature, clinical and parent/caregiver partner expertise, and information from existing evidence-based child trauma treatment models. Core components identified: engagement of parent/caregiver, assessment, parenting, coregulation, attachment, relationship repair, support of parent/caregiver, emotional coaching, addressing parent/caregiver trauma history and symptoms, and parent/caregiver appraisal and meaning making. To further validate these core components, the PCTHCG invited child trauma treatment model developers (N = 11) to indicate the presence of these components in their models and describe how their models attend to parent/caregiver trauma. Subsequently, a Core Components of Trauma-Informed Child Treatment Models Related to Parent/Caregiver Trauma Grid (Core Components Grid) was developed. Despite general consensus that it is beneficial, few studies thoroughly explore the impact of parent/caregiver inclusion, specifically those who have experienced trauma, in their child’s trauma treatment. There is a significant need for future studies on the impact and mechanisms of parent/caregiver trauma and the integration into child trauma treatment. The Core Components Grid is intended to move the field forward toward a more structured examination of parents/caregivers who have experienced trauma and their inclusion in their child’s trauma treatment.

A Randomized Controlled Feasibility Trial of Reminder-focused Positive Psychiatry in Adolescents with Comorbid Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, authored by Naser Ahmadi, Shahzad Chaudhry, Towhid Salam, John Rodriguez, Michael Kase, Garth Olango, Mohammed Molla, James McCracken, and Robert Pynoos investigates the impact of reminder-focused positive psychiatry (RFPP) on attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, vascular-function, inflammation and well-being of adolescents with comorbid ADHD and PTSD.

 

   

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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.