Provides support, information, and advocacy for professionals and foster and adoptive parents of traumatized children.
http://nysccc.org/wp-content/uploads/SchoolerPPointPart2TraumaCompPart.pdf (425 KB)
http://nysccc.org/wp-content/uploads/SchoolerPart2Essentials.pdf (302 KB)
What makes child welfare services for young people in foster care “trauma-informed”?
● An understanding of trauma that includes an appreciation of its prevalence among young people in foster care and its common consequences.
● Individualizing the young person.
● Maximizing the young person’s sense of trust and safety.
● Assisting the young person in reducing overwhelming emotion.
● Strengths-based services. Link to Issue Brief
This paper works to increase appreciation of the relevance of trauma in understanding children and in planning to meet their needs. It discusses the vulnerability of children and the unique needs of traumatized children. Part 1 on the challenge of childhood trauma provides a synopsis of child development and the differential responses to trauma, identifies risk and protective factors related to child maltreatment, explains the magnitude of the problem of trauma and consequences related to child psychiatric disorders, adult psychiatric disorders, juvenile and criminal justice, women who have been traumatized, inappropriate interventions, and the psychological effects of trauma on children. Part 2 on trauma-informed care reviews key components of trauma informed care, strength based approaches and the promotion of resilience, the use of the public health model, and programmatic approaches to trauma informed care. Recommended public policies at the federal, State, and local levels are also discussed, and a list of suggested reading is provided. Link to Brief
This toolkit is designed to enhance the important partnership between child care providers and family service workers in the child welfare system, with the goal of ensuring that foster children get the best care possible. As the division directors of the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS)/Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and the Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education (DCCECE), we know how important it is that we work together in the interests of the child. It is critical that child care providers understand the impact of abuse and neglect on children, the special role they can play in the lives of foster children and how they can partner with child welfare staff. It is equally important that child welfare staff understand the impact that experiences in child care have on children’s development and to partner with child care staff. Link to Toolkit
2012: US Department of Health and Human Services. Administration for Children and Families. Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. The second National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW II) is a longitudinal study intended to answer a range of fundamental questions about the functioning, service needs, and service use of children who come in contact with the child welfare system. Wave 2 is a follow-up of children and families approximately 18 months after the close of the NSCAW I index investigation. Data collection for the second wave of the study began in October 2009 and was completed in January 2011.
Link to pdf Report
Summer 2012, Infant Crier, pp 4-8, Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health: A certain number of children with significant challenges need continuing intervention past age 3. They and their parents have trouble making the transition from intensive home-based therapy to more limited or no services during the preschool years. For children, the difficulties of this transition show up as behavioral and emotional problems in childcare or Head Start programs that are not organized to provide therapeutic support. How might services be organized? Treatment would be organized to stress helping preschoolers master self-regulation difficulties by providing them with experiences of mutual regulation with parents and other adults. In addition, more intensive services would be available to preschoolers with significant histories of neglect, abuse, trauma, and loss. Discusses the Building Blocks Therapeutic Preschool program in Oakland, California. Many of the kids at Building Blocks, probably most at any given time, do not live with biological parents; they live instead with relatives and foster parents. Nearly all of the children have significant histories of early trauma and neglect. Link to pdf Infant Crier Issue