Expanding Mental Health Care for Young Children Who Have Experienced Trauma

Children and families who have experienced trauma – domestic violence, child abuse, a sudden loss of a loved one, a serious injury – are left to deal with the emotional and mental health effects on their own. When families want help, resources and access to care continue to be challenging.

The Center for Family Safety and Healing (TCFSH) at Nationwide Children’s Hospital is using a new $2 million federal grant to reach those most at risk when exposed to trauma in Franklin and partnering counties, and to reach them as soon as possible.

Training staff in the hospital’s Behavioral Health specialties, in the hospital’s Emergency Department, and in rural community service agencies in evidence-based trauma treatment for children will increase the availability of high-quality care that will be more accessible sooner. This initiative also prioritizes collaborations with service providers working with immigrant families, whose unique barriers often prevent access to these services.

The grant is part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative. The goal is not only to reach families who have challenges accessing services, says Nancy Cunningham, PsyD, vice president of The Center for Family Safety and healing, but also to build sustainable training and service collaboration models that will last over time. 

“If we reduce the amount of time that elapses between a traumatic event and trauma-based mental health care for that event, we can help prevent some of the most complex effects of trauma,” she says. “A focus will be on young children and expectant and new mothers who have already experienced trauma in their lives. We can have a positive impact on their children, and address intergenerational trauma, by responding to these mothers. We are working closely with our Nurse-Family Partnership and Healthy Families America home visiting programs to accomplish this goal.” 

TCFSH hopes to do this in four main ways over the next five years:

• Workforce development of specialty-trained behavioral health clinicians coordinated through Nationwide Children’s Behavioral Health Early Childhood Mental Health Program. Under the direction of Kris West, PhD, health care professionals will receive training in Child-Parent Psychotherapy and Perinatal Child-Parent Psychotherapy (focused on the period before and immediately following birth) and participate in regional learning communities in Early Childhood Mental Health services for sustainability and future workforce expansion. This effort includes learning and consultation experiences for evidence based home visitation programs at TCFSH.

• Training health care professionals in Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention, allowing them to help families immediately after a trauma occurs, in settings including the Child Advocacy Center, Emergency Department and Urgent Care, and more rural community settings.

• Nurturing family engagement and satisfaction, in part by bridging cultural and language obstacles and engaging multicultural families in a family advisory workgroup to help inform our services.

• Educating community health workers and agencies in trauma informed care, so they are equipped provide their best response to families  

TCFSH and Nationwide Children’s can’t do this on their own, says Dr. Cunningham, because so many other organizations also serve people who have experienced trauma. They are also partnering with a host of community agencies in this work, including Ethiopian Tewahedo Social Services, a front-line agency helping immigrants and refugees in central Ohio; The Woodlands and National Youth Advocate Program, Licking County organizations providing mental health and family support services; Allwell Behavioral Health Services in Muskingum County; The Children’s Resource Center in Wood County; and CelebrateOne, the Columbus-area initiative to improve infant mortality rates.

“We understand that we need to expand our capacity to engage and support these families who have experienced trauma, especially those who may not typically seek out care,” says Dr. Cunningham. “While we have all been trying to do so, there is just so much more need. With this grant, we believe can make a real difference.”