The Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) program is a school-based, group and individual intervention. It is designed to reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and behavioral problems, and to improve functioning, grades and attendance, peer and parent support, and coping skills. CBITS has been used with students from 5th grade through 12th grade who have witnessed or experienced traumatic life events such as community and school violence, accidents and injuries, physical abuse and domestic violence, and natural and human-made disasters. CBITS uses cognitive-behavioral techniques (e.g., psychoeducation, relaxation, social problem solving, cognitive restructuring, and exposure).
Category Archives: Children (0-12)
Healthy Environments and Response to Trauma in Schools (HEARTS)
The UCSF HEARTS project is a comprehensive, multilevel school-based prevention and intervention program for children who have experienced trauma. The goal of UCSF HEARTS is to create school environments that are more trauma-sensitive and supportive of the needs of traumatized children. A main objective of this project is to work collaboratively with a School District to promote school success by decreasing trauma-related difficulties and increasing healthy functioning in students within the school district who have experienced complex trauma. Trauma-sensitive school environments will likely benefit not only traumatized children, but also those who are affected by these children, including child peers and school personnel. Founders of UCSF HEARTS: Joyce Dorado, Ph.D. Project Director, Assistant Clinical Professor, UCSF-SFUSD HEARTS, and Lynn Dolce, MFT, and Miriam Martinez, PhD.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an empirically supported treatment designed to help people manage overwhelming feelings and self-defeating behaviors. These feelings and behaviors may create major challenges in life (such as angry outbursts, violence, depression, immobility and avoidance by suicide attempts, substance abuse, and eating disorders). DBT encompasses core modules of mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness skills training. The emphasis is on building and enhancing skills to regulate emotions, deal with the distressing situations, and improve relationships. DBT was invented by Dr. Marsha Linehan, a psychologist, who used her own insights from living successfully with Borderline Personality Disorder to develop this novel therapy. In its standard form, there are four components of DBT: skills training group, individual treatment, DBT phone coaching, and consultation team.
Trauma Center-Justice Resource Institute
DBT Fact Sheet – NAMI
Trauma Systems Therapy (TST)
TST is a comprehensive, phase-based treatment program for children and adolescents who have experienced traumatic events and/or who live in environments with ongoing traumatic stress. TST is designed to address the complicated needs of a trauma system, which is defined as the combination of a traumatized child/adolescent who, when exposed to trauma reminders, has difficulty regulating his/her emotions and behavior and his/her caregiver/system of care who is not able to adequately protect the youth or help him/her to manage this dysregulation. The most common setting in which TST is implemented is for youth in child welfare who can be in birth homes, foster care, residential treatment centers, community-based prevention programs, and programs for unaccompanied refugee minors. There is an emphasis on involvement of the caregiver as being essential to success. TST was developed by Dr. Saxe and Dr. Heidi Ellis at Boston University School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Boston. The materials are available in Spanish and Korean.
Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT)
TF-CBT is a psychosocial treatment model designed to treat post traumatic stress and related emotional and behavioral problems in children and adolescents ages 3 to 18 years. Initially developed to address problems associated with childhood sexual abuse, TF-CBT has been modified and tested with children who have experienced a wide array of traumas, including domestic violence, traumatic loss, war, commercial sexual exploitation, and the often multiple and complex traumas experienced by children who are placed in foster care. TF-CBT is appropriate for use with children exposed to trauma whose parents or caregivers did not participate in the abuse.
12-16 weeks, conjoint child and parent psychotherapy approach for children and adolescents who are experiencing significant emotional and behavioral difficulties related to traumatic life events.
Trauma and Grief Component Therapy (TGCT)
Ages 10–18; impacted by community violence, traumatic bereavement, natural and human-made disasters, war/ethnic cleansing, domestic violence, witnessing interpersonal violence, medical trauma, serious accidents, physical assaults, gang violence, and terrorist events; designed to identify/effectively treat youth who are moderately to severely distressed.
Muslim, Croatian, and Serbian youths, multi-racial, multi-ethnic middle and high school students exposed to community violence and school shootings.
http://www.nctsn.org/sites/default/files/assets/pdfs/tcgt_a_general.pdf
Trauma Affect Regulation Guide for Education and Therapy (TARGET)
TARGET is a trauma-focused psychotherapy for the concurrent treatment of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorders (SUDs). The program, which has been used with adolescents and adults, is designed to serve individuals suffering from PTSD and SUDs. The goal of treatment is to help patients suffering from PTSD and SUDs to regulate intense emotions and solve social problems while simultaneously maintaining sobriety.
Youth and adults with past or recent incidents of trauma.
Safety, Mentoring, Advocacy, Recovery and Treatment (SMART)
The Safety, Mentoring, Advocacy, Recovery, and Treatment (SMART) model developed by a team of clinicians at the Kennedy Krieger Institute Family Center is a structured, phase-based, abuse-focused, treatment approach to address the emotional and behavioral needs of young children with a history of sexual abuse exhibiting problematic sexual behavior (PSB). A major premise of the model is that the PSB stems from emotional responses to the prior child sexual abuse causing the child to form cognitive distortions about themselves, others, and the world around them. A unique feature of the model is the formation of parallel narratives of the child’s experiences as a victim and as one who victimizes others. Children are supported to examine their roles and perceptions associated with each of these experiences. Clinicians guide children and their families through this process and provide the context for comparison leading to the integration of these experiences into a single narrative. The SMART model consists of three clinically essential phases: Safety and Stabilization, Triggers/Integration, and Re-Socialization. The SMART model utilizes individual, family, and group therapy simultaneously.
Real Life Heroes
Real Life Heroes was especially designed for children in child and family service programs who frequently lack safe, nurturing homes and secure relationships with caring and committed adults. The model can be used by programs and agencies as a prescriptive methodology to address primary goals including preventing placements, reuniting families, or finding alternate permanent homes for children who cannot return to biological parents.
Real Life Heroes (RLH) is based on cognitive behavioral therapy models for treating post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in school-aged youth. Designed for use in child and family agencies, RLH can be used to treat attachment, loss, and trauma issues resulting from family violence, disasters, severe and chronic neglect, physical and sexual abuse, repeated traumas, and post traumatic developmental disorder. RLH focuses on rebuilding attachments, building the skills and interpersonal resources needed to reintegrate painful memories, fostering healing, and restoring hope. These goals are accomplished using nonverbal creative arts, narrative interventions, and gradual exposure to help children process their traumatic memories and bolster their adaptive coping strategies.
Prolonged Exposure Therapy for Adolescents with PTSD (PE-A)
The treatment is designed for male and female adolescents aged 13-17 but has also been implemented with younger children. The pilot data were collected in a Philadelphia urban rape crisis center specializing in the treatment of adults and children who have been sexually assaulted, and in a hospital based clinic in Israel where patients experienced a variety of traumatic events including sexual assault and abuse, motor vehicle accidents, and terror attacks. Clients were predominantly African American and White in the American sample, and White in the Israeli sample. The manual is in English and has been translated into Hebrew.