PILOTS Database Access, Usage Tips, and Assistance Available through the National Center Published International Literature on Traumatic Stress (PILOTS) is a searchable index to literature on traumatic stress, PTSD, and other mental health consequences of exposure to traumatic events. This interdisciplinary, multilingual database is produced by the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (NCPTSD), a partner with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN). The PILOTS Database can be searched for free via the NCTSN Website. With the PILOTS Database, visitors can identify articles on the consequences of traumatic events in children and adults from fields such as psychology, psychiatry, child welfare, criminal justice, sociology, and anthropology."Searching is flexible and easy," said Cybele Merrick, the NCTSN's research associate based at NCPTSD. "Just type in one or more terms or an author's name or choose descriptions from the online thesaurus to get started." Visitors can also combine multiple search terms such as authors, publication dates, language, and publication type, for more complex searching and targeted results. Search results can be printed or downloaded to a word processing program or bibliographic software. The PILOTS Database provides a link to many indexed articles that are available in full text and may be downloaded from free or for a fee, depending upon the publisher. Information about obtaining documents and complete instructions for searching PILOTS Database are available online. For additional assistance, NCTSN members may e-mail Cybele Merrick or call her at (802) 295-9363 extension 5902. NCTSN's Terrorism & Disaster Branch Assists Hurricane Victims and More The National Center's Terrorism and Disaster Branch (TDB), along with several NCTSN centers, have assisted American Red Cross Disaster and Mental Health (ARC DMH) volunteers and the Charlotte County, Florida Department of Public Health with the acute post-impact phase of assistance due to the recent onslaught of hurricanes in Florida. The TDB is now working with the Center for Mental Health Services to determine how the TDB can facilitate the Florida crisis response program in terms of meeting the unique needs of children and parents. The American Red Cross will provide for special training to have more disaster mental health services available in Florida. Several NCTSN members and staff from various partner agencies throughout the United States have offered to volunteer and become ARC DMH volunteers. In addition, the TDB has also had an active role in other disasters and recovery processes after the California wildfires last fall and currently have a pilot triage/screening protocol in process in a mountain community school district. Finally, the TDB provided a number of materials to the International Federation of Red Cross/Psychological Reference Center (IFRC/PRC) in response to the Beslan, Russia, school tragedy. These materials include NCTSN products on manualized, evidence-based care for childhood traumatic grief, early childhood grief, and traumatic grief focused treatment. The TDB has also offered to provide a consultation via phone to IFRC. For additional information on the TDB, e-mail Melissa Brymer, the National Center's TDB manager. National Center Co-Directors Receive Award at 2004 APSAC Conference John Fairbank and Robert Pynoos, co-directors for the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, were jointly awarded the "Outstanding Professional Award" at this year's American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) Colloquium. In addition to recognizing the work of Drs. Fairbank and Pynoos, APSAC worked with the National Center to plan the first ever Pre-Conference NCTSN Training and NCTSN Colloquium Track at this year's event, which took place August 4-7, 2004, in Hollywood, California. The NCTSN tracks focused on the numerous training requests received by the National Center, including training on trauma-based interventions. NCTSN In the News Media coverage is captured by the National Center when references to the NCTSN are included in the story. When NCTSN members work with the media, the NRC requests that NCTSN members mention their center's participation in the NCTSN and notify the NRC of any media activity. The following media outlets recently published information on child traumatic stress and the NCTSN: September 3: St. Petersburg Times quoted Alan Steinberg in a story about children coping with the after-effects of 9/11 September 4-5: An Associated Press story that extensively quotes National Center co-director John Fairbank about children and hurricanes ran in the New York Times; New York Newsday; Los Angeles Times; L.A. Daily News; Boston Globe; Boston Herald; Miami Herald; Guardian (UK); San Jose Mercury News; Seattle Post Intelligencer; Kansas City Star; Baltimore Sun; Akron Beacon Journal; Canton Repository; Spectator Newspapers (NJ); Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (GA); Macon Telegraph (GA); Winston-Salem Journal; Charlotte Observer; Wilmington Morning Star (NC); State (SC); Myrtle Beach Sun News; Tuscaloosa News (AL); Times Daily (AL); Fort Worth Star Telegram; Biloxi Sun Herald (MS); Times Picayune (LA); Sarasota Herald Tribune; Orlando Sentinel; Brandenton Herald (FL); Naples Daily News (FL); Tallahassee Democrat; News-Press (FL); Sun Sentinel (FL); Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel; Ledger (FL); Centre Daily Times (PA); Wilkes Barr Times-Leader (PA); Fort Wayne Journal Gazette; Worcester Telegram (MA); Anchorage Daily News; Duluth News Tribune; Grand Forks Herald (ND); San Louis Obispo Tribune; Monterey County Herald (CA); ABC News.com; Tallahassee.com; Kentucky.com; Kansas.com; Philly.com; WJLA.com (DC); News4Jax.com; NBC6.com; and Mlive.com. September 8: Tampa Tribune quotes NCTSN information in an article on kids weathering hurricanes. Radio Jamaica airs a live interview with David Corwin of Child Trauma Treatment Network-Intermountain West Primary Children's Medical Center , about the NCTSN, child sexual abuse, and child trauma. September 11: New York Times; Los Angeles Daily News; Springfield State Journal Register (IL); Pioneer Press (MN); State (SC), and other news outlets publish a New York Times original story on children coping with the ramifications of having lost a parent in the terrorist's attacks of 9/11/01. National Center associate director Alan Steinberg and other NCTSN members are quoted. Disaster News Network quotes National Center staff about the stress terrorism threats have on children. September 12: Salt Lake Tribune publishes an article “Therapy Teaches Parents to Become Nurturing Caregivers,” stemming from presentations at the NCTSN/Intermountain West Conference. September 14: Montana Kaimin publishes a story about a visit by SAMHSA and NCTSN staff to the Rocky Boys Reservation and the Montana Center for the Investigation and Treatment of Childhood Trauma. September 16: Montana Public Radio airs an interview with John Fairbank, National Center co-director, Rick van den Pol, director of the Montana Center for the Investigation and Treatment of Childhood Trauma, and Aaron Morisett, Trauma Intervention Specialist. September 17: Durham Herald Sun publishes an op-ed by NRC director Robert Franks “Hurricanes Stress Children and Adults.” September 22: KSL-TV Salt Lake City covers the child traumatic stress of witnessing a serious accident, featuring an interview with staff from Primary Children's Medical Center. September 27: Psychiatric Times publishes a story on trauma treatments for sexually abused children, by NCTSN members Judith Cohen, Esther Deblinger, and Anthony Mannarino, who say they will disseminate best practices through the NCTSN. September 28: Orlando Sentinel, Charlotte Observer, Kansas City Star, Centre Daily Times (PA), San Luis Obispo Tribune, Pioneer Press (MN), Myrtle Beach Sun News, Monterey County Herald (CA), Bradenton Herald (FL), Macon Telegraph (GA), Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (GA), Grand Forks Herald (ND), Biloxi Sun Herald, Duluth News Tribune, Talahassee.com, and Kentucky.com published “Sick of Storms and Their Aftermath, Floridians Long for Normalcy,” quoting Ann Kelley of Healing the Hurt, Directions for Mental Health, Inc., and the NCTSN. NCTSN centers or members that have been in the news and are not mentioned above, please e-mail this information to Patrick Cody, the National Center's media consultant. NCTSN Performance Report Now on NCTSN Website The NCTSN Performance Report for the second quarter of fiscal year three (January-March 2004) is now available under "Network Performance" on the members-only NCTSN Website. Any questions or concerns with this report may be e-mailed to Andrew Broughton, Monitoring & Evaluation and Technology Consultant.

New Mexico Alliance for Children with Traumatic Stress Santa Fe, New Mexico New Mexico Alliance for Children with Traumatic Stress (NewMACTS) is a collaborative of local, state, tribal and nonprofit agencies and organizations dedicated to improving and expanding services for traumatized children and families. Its work is coordinated by Sarthak Das out of the New Mexico Human Services Department. NewMACTS has active projects in Santa Fe County, Grant County, the Navajo Nation, and Acoma-Laguna Pueblos. In Santa Fe, a Best Practices Committee or “clinical collaborative” composed of therapists, clinical supervisors, and mental health administrators is working together to adopt evidence-based treatment for children with traumatic stress. This group has received training from Laura Merchant of Harborview about trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy and is also discussing issues such as reflective supervision and vicarious traumatization. It is now creating a toolkit for building clinical collaboratives around child trauma that will be shared with the Network. A similar clinical collaborative is being developed in Grant County in conjunction with the Community Health Council there. Together with the University of New Mexico, NewMACTS is conducting a screening and assessment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among Native American middle and high schoolers from Acoma and Laguna Pueblo. School professionals have received training on the CBITS (cognitive behavioral intervention for trauma in schools) model, and children are being enrolled in groups in three schools this fall. NewMACTS is also working with therapists in the Navajo Nation to create a blueprint for an integrated treatment protocol for traumatized Navajo children. Laura Merchant and Sarthak are driving into remote parts of the Navajo reservation in Arizona to meet with Navajo therapists and discuss the model. NewMACTS hopes to create more culturally sensitive treatment methods for Navajo children using both Western psychotherapy and Navajo healing practices. For more information about this NCTSN center, e-mail Sarthak Das, program director, or call (505) 827-7228.

NCTSN Pediatric Medical Trauma Toolkit Now Available On NCTSN Website The NCTSN Medical Trauma Working Group has completed its accelerated collaborative project to raise awareness among health care providers about traumatic stress associated with pediatric medical events and medical treatment. This comprehensive toolkit is currently available on the NCTSN Website. For more information about this topic or the working group, e-mail Alessia Gottlieb, the National Center's lead on this project. NRC Continues to Call for NCTSN Assistance in Building the National Library and Website The NRC is continuing the important process of collecting materials for the NCTSN’s National Library and website. To achieve this goal, the NRC requests that any relevant resources from NCTSN centers relating to the topic of child traumatic stress be sent to the NRC librarian as soon as possible. Materials to be submitted include, but are not limited to, journal articles, book chapters, guides, manuals, training curricula, white papers, videos, DVDs, etc. Please send materials to: Robert James, Interim Librarian National Resource Center National Center for Child Traumatic Stress Duke University School of Medicine 905 West Main Street, Suite 23-D Durham, NC 27701 Phone: 919-660-1157 Fax: 919-681-7599 National Center Exhibits at National Trauma Consortium's 1st Annual "Dare To Act" Conference November 29-December 3, 2004 • Baltimore, Maryland The National Center has arranged to be a first-time exhibitor at the National Trauma Consortium's (NTC) first annual "Dare to Act" Conference. This event is scheduled for November 29-December 3, 2004, in Baltimore, Maryland. National Center leadership invites all attendees of this event to visit the NCTSN display booth for information on the latest NCTSN products and materials. If NCTSN members plan to attend, please notify Bob Franks, NRC director. For additional information about this invitation-only event, visit the NTC Website or call 413-536-2401 extension 5513. APSAC's 2nd Annual Trauma Treatment Clinic November 29-December 3, 2004 • Maui, Hawaii The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) will hold its Second Annual Trauma Treatment Clinic at the Kapalua Bay Hotel in Maui, Hawaii. This clinic is designed to refresh the mind, emotions, and senses of professionals in a relaxing setting with a faculty of leading experts and experienced colleagues from around the world. To learn more about this clinic, visit the APSAC Website. Call for Workshop Proposals at NBCDI 35th Annual Conference Deadline: December 15, 2004 Christine Guthrie, one of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services' program officers for the NCTSN, has noted this event as one of possible interest to NCTSN members. The National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI) has issued a call for workshop proposals for its thirty-fifth annual conference, "Bridging Culture in a Changing World," which will be held October 16-18, 2005, at the Wyndham Palace Resort & Spa in Orlando Florida. The NBCDI is seeking presentations that that explore the myriad of issues involved in the caring, education, and overall well being of children, youth, and families. NBCDI is particularly interested in perspectives that are as diverse as public policy, advocacy, practice, assessment, and research. The NBCDI welcomes workshop proposals from educators, parents, students and professionals. To learn more, or to apply online, visit the NBCDI Website. 19th Annual San Diego Conference on Child and Family Maltreatment January 24-28, 2005 • San Diego, California The NCTSN's Chadwick Center for Children and Families is hosting its annual conference and expecting approximately one thousand-five hundred attendees from across the United States and from over thirty countries. This annual event focuses on utilizing solid, evidence-based and informed practices in order to enhance the prevention, evaluation, investigation, prosecution, and treatment of child and family abuse as well as community violence. For additional information, or to register, visit the Chadwick Center's Website or contact Nicole Taylor, project manager, at 858-576-1700 extension 6603. Call for Papers Issued for 18th Annual Research Conference on Children's Mental Health Service Systems Susan Ko, the National Center's Service Systems Core director, wishes to notify the NCTSN and the public of the following event. The Research and Training Center for Children's Mental Health (RTC) is now accepting applications to present at the eighteenth Annual Research Conference on Children's Mental Health. This national conference will be held March 6-9, 2005 in Tampa, Florida. For additional information about this event, contact the Research and Training Center for Children's Mental Health.

Chaffin, Mark, Silovsky, Jane F., Funderburk, Beverly, Valle, Linda Anne, Brestan, Elizabeth V., Balachova, Tatiana, Jackson, Shelli, Lensgraf, Jay, and Bonner, Barbara L. (2004). Parent–Child Interaction Therapy With Physically Abusive Parents: Efficacy for Reducing Future Abuse Reports. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Volume 72, Number 3.

Brown, Timothy A., White, Kamila S., Forsyth, John P., and Barlow, David H. (2004). The Structure of Perceived Emotional Control: Psychometric Properties of a Revised Anxiety Control Questionnaire. Behavior Therapy. Volume 35, Number 1: Winter 2004.

Burns, Barbara J., Phillips, Susan D., Wagner, H. Ryan, Barth, Richard P., Kolko, David J., Campbell, Yvonne, and Landsverk, John (2004). Mental Health Need and Access to Mental Health Services by Youth Involved With Child Welfare: A National Survey. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. August 2004.

Kagan, Richard (2004). Rebuilding Attachments With Traumatized Children: Healing From Losses, Violence, Abuse, and Neglect. Haworth Maltreatment and Trauma Press.

Stein, Bradley D., Tanielian, Terri L., Eisenman, David P., Keyser, Donna J., Burnam, M. Audrey, and Pincus, Harold A. (2004). Emotional and Behavioral Consequences of Bioterriorism: Planning a Public Health Response. The Milbank Quarterly. Volume 82, Number 3, pp. 413-455.

NCTSN Debuts Pediatric Medical Trauma Toolkit—Resource Educates Physicians and Families
Based on years of research on the impact that serious illness and medical procedures have on children and adolescents, the NCTSN has developed a new Pediatric Medical Traumatic Stress Toolkit for Healthcare Providers. The toolkit educates hospital administrators, physicians, nurses, and families about child traumatic stress and provides tips on how to ease anxieties around children's serious illnesses and hospital visits.

Research shows that invasive surgery, serious illnesses, injuries, and other medical events can be traumatic for children, provoking traumatic stress reactions that can interfere with their healing and development. And while healthcare professionals and families are increasingly aware of the immediate and longer-term consequences of traumatic stress reactions that children and teens may experience from serious medical events, the Pediatric Medical Traumatic Stress Toolkit now gives them tools to prevent and treat traumatic stress reactions.

Up to 80 percent of children who experience a life-threatening illness, injury or painful medical procedure experience traumatic stress afterward. Most children cope well with extra support and with time. However, some children will have persistent traumatic stress reactions, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. When they persist, traumatic stress reactions can impair day-to-day functioning, adherence to medical treatment, and recovery.

As medical professionals work to help children heal physically, they also play an important role in helping children and families cope with serious medical events. With greater awareness of pediatric medical traumatic stress, they can do even more to minimize potentially traumatic aspects of medical care, identify children at the highest risk for persistent distress, and provide guidance to families to help prevent long-lasting traumatic stress.

“The Pediatric Medical Traumatic Stress Toolkit will help medical providers in a variety of hospital settings keep the potential for trauma in mind as they treat children," said Nancy Kassam-Adams, PhD, co-chair of the NCTSN Medical Traumatic Stress Working Group and co-director, Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. “It will help them both prevent and treat traumatic stress.”

Contents include a comprehensive guide to pediatric medical traumatic stress, fact sheets for parents, and quick-reference flash cards for healthcare providers. The flash cards provide questions that medical professionals can use to assess a child's distress, emotional supports, and additional family stressors. The toolkit lists ways that hospital personnel can ease distress, bolster a child's emotional supports, and support families.

"The Pediatric Medical Traumatic Stress Toolkit offers busy, front-line medical and surgical clinicians useful, at-a-glance information about helping children and families at high risk," said Glenn Saxe, MD, co-chair of the Working Group and chairman, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Boston University Medical Center.

Tools for parents and families include separate tips for supporting children and teens. Additionally, vignettes explain in detail the medical experiences children and teens may face, how children and teens may experience these events, and what parents can do to help children and teens feel “normal” and return to their routines, as much and as soon as is possible.

The toolkit is being debuted at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2004 National Conference and Exhibition, which is scheduled for October 9-13, 2004, in San Francisco, California. It is also available on the NCTSN Website. Individuals may download PDFs free of charge, or order a hard copy of the toolkit for $6.50 via the NCTSN Website.

The NCTSN Medical Trauma working group comprises professionals from a variety of NCTSN centers. In addition to Kassam-Adams and Saxe, co-chairs include Anne Kazak, PhD, director, Department of Psychology, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Margaret Stuber, MD, Jane and Marc Nathanson Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. Working group members also plan to use the toolkit to promote linkages between health care, mental health, and other trauma-focused service sectors.

NCTSN's Systems Integration Group Releases Preliminary Survey Results of Service System Cooperation Following Incidents of Child Maltreatment
The NCTSN Systems Integration Working Group (SIG) has been examining different service systems that are involved with children following incidents of child maltreatment. They identified numerous organizations and systems that have contact with a child and his/her family once a crime-related traumatic event occurs.

To gain a better understanding of how well these systems work together in addressing the trauma-related needs of the children, SIG members conducted a survey among local stakeholders concerning how these systems, alone or in interaction with others, may assist a child's healing or, alternatively, exacerbate a child's traumatic stress reactions by creating secondary trauma. Interviews were conducted in ten different cities spread across the country, and included both quantitative and qualitative questions. Nicole Taylor from the NCTSN's Chadwick Center for Children and Families in San Diego is compiling the survey results.

The systems examined included family/dependency courts, child protective agencies, foster parent associations, foster or substitute care facilities, mental health agencies, and schools. The survey assessed the ways in which trauma-related information is gathered, assessed, and shared among some of these agencies. The ultimate goal of this and other SIG projects is to identify gaps in communication among agencies and systems and to develop training and educational materials to improve collaboration on issues associated with child maltreatment and trauma.

The ultimate goal of this and other SIG projects is to identify gaps in communication among agencies and systems and to develop training and educational materials to improve collaboration on issues associated with child maltreatment and trauma.

Preliminary quantitative findings include the following:

•  Regardless of whether the stakeholders worked in the courts, child welfare system, foster care agency, mental health agency, or the schools, they do not often receive in-depth information about a child's trauma history when a child is first referred to them by another agency or system.

•  Information collected about a child's maltreatment is often limited to information about the referring trauma only and does not include information about previous traumatic incidents in the child's history.

•  Overall, information about trauma reminders/triggers is asked about less frequently at intake than are other trauma issues.

•  All stakeholder groups interviewed gather less information about the duration of abuse and the number of traumatic episodes, and slightly less information on internalizing symptoms, than they do about other aspects of trauma.

•  Less than half of the agencies interviewed did any training with their staff about available evidence-based treatment for children with trauma histories.

•  About a third of those interviewed said that they never make referrals to a treatment provider or placement based upon its use of evidence-based practices and another third said they rarely did so.

•  Less than two thirds of those stakeholders interviewed did any training with their staff about trauma assessment.

Stakeholders shared areas in which they felt the greatest need for improved communication regarding trauma-related issues. Two specific areas of need identified include difficulty with multiple school placements and transitions between different school systems for children and adolescents in the child welfare system and issues related to visitation after trauma.

The Systems Integration Workgroup is using information from this survey to identify future directions for the workgroup. For additional information on this NCTSN survey or this working group, e-mail Taylor or Christine Siegfried, network liaison.

Kauffman Best Practices Project Final Report Now Available on NCTSN Website
Last spring the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Children's Hospital in San Diego published Closing the Quality Chasm in Child Abuse Treatment: Identifying and Disseminating Best Practices under a grant from the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City and in cooperation with the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress and the Kauffman Best Practices Task Force of the NCTSN.

Ben Saunders from the Medical University of South Carolina served as lead consultant and Charles Wilson, Barbara Ryan, and Nicole Taylor from Chadwick as project staff.

The work was performed under the guidance of a twenty-six person advisory committee that drew heavily from a wide array of NCTSN centers and National Center staff and was supplemented by several key leaders from outside the NCTSN.

The group settled on three best practices that had enough supporting empirical evidence to demonstrate their efficacy as a best practice in treating common symptoms resulting from child abuse. The task force focused on trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF CBT) for sexually abused children, abuse-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (AF CBT) for physically abused children, and parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT).

The report provides an overview of these practices and outlines the key elements that make them effective and then delves in much greater depth into the barriers of spreading these practices.

The task force drew upon the experience of the Institute of Health Care Improvement (IHI) as it studied the barriers to widespread dissemination and in developing strategies to overcome the barriers. Many of the lessons learned in this analysis would apply equally well to other evidence-supported treatments NCTSN centers wish to spread.

In the end the task force recommended a number of strategies from financial incentives and professional education to the use of the “Breakthrough Series” Learning Collaborative Model from IHI, which is now being considered for use within the NCTSN. For additional information on this report, download the Kauffman Best Practices Project Final Report from the NCTSN Website or through the websites of the Chadwick Center or Medical University of South Carolina.

Pew Commission Reports to Congress on Overhauling Foster Care
Supported by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts to the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute, the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care includes some of the nation's leading child welfare experts. The panel was charged with developing practical, evidence-based recommendations related to federal financing and court oversight of child welfare to improve outcomes for children in foster care, particularly to expedite the movement of children from foster care to safe, permanent families and to prevent unnecessary placements in foster care.

The NCTSN's Joy Osofsky, a professor of Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Public Health at Louisiana Sate University Health Sciences Center and co-director of the NCTSN Rural Trauma Services Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, is a member of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care. She participated in releasing sweeping recommendations to Congress to overhaul the nation's foster care system. "Personally, I learned a great deal about the complexity of the issues during the year of discussions, presentations, and deliberations and I concluded that better programs, procedures, and policies for children in the child welfare system will only result from a combination of personal commitment and political will," said Osofsky.

The Pew Commission's recommendations focus on what states and courts need to help children have safe, permanent homes.

The key components of the commission's financing recommendations are:

• Preserving federal foster care maintenance and adoption assistance as an entitlement and expanding it to all children, regardless of their birth families' income and including Indian children and children in the US territories.

• Providing federal guardianship assistance to all children who leave foster care to live with a permanent legal guardian when a court has explicitly determined that neither reunification nor adoption are feasible permanence options.

• Helping states build a range of services from prevention, to treatment, to postpermanence by (1) creating a flexible, indexed Safe Children, Strong Families Grant from what is currently included in Title IV-B and the administration and training components of Title IV-E; and (2) allowing states to “reinvest” federal and state foster care dollars into other child welfare services if they safely reduce their use of foster care.

• Encouraging innovation by expanding and simplifying the waiver process and providing incentives to states that (1) make and maintain improvements in their child welfare workforce and (2) increase all forms of safe permanence.

• Strengthening the current child and family services review process to increase states' accountability for improving outcomes for children.

The commission's court recommendations call for:

• Adoption of court performance measures by every dependency court to ensure that they can track and analyze their caseloads, increase accountability for improved outcomes for children, and inform decisions about the allocation of court resources.

• Incentives and requirements for effective collaboration between courts and child welfare agencies on behalf of children in foster care.

• A strong voice for children and parents in court and effective representation by better trained attorneys and volunteer advocates.

• Leadership from chief justices and other state court leaders in organizing their court systems to better serve children, provide training for judges, and promote more effective standards for dependency courts, judges, and attorneys.

For additional information about the Pew Commission, e-mail Gina Russo, the commission's communications director.

NCTSN's NYU Child Study Center Conducts 9/11 Anniversary Activities
In remembrance of the losses experienced by children and families in New York City on 9/11, the NCTSN's New York University Child Study Center participated in the following community-based services and activities to commemorate the third anniversary of this event.

•  Participated in “Voices of September 11th ” a family-based organization. Ten staff met with 9/11 families and their friends and answered questions about ongoing 9/11 treatment services; distributed fact sheets on PTSD and talked to children about terrorism and war; presented children's artwork from the book: “The Day Our World Changed: Children's Art of 9/11”; provided copies of the Wall Street Journal article “Mourning goes undercover”; and provided NCTSN brochures on children and trauma.

•  Updated the NYU Child Study Center Website, which includes “Roads to Recovery and Resilience: Multiple Approaches,” written by Dr. Anita Gurian.

•  Provided a summary on the web of the center's activities this year, such as a assessment and counseling services provided by the Silver Shield Bereavement Program, which served 203 children.

•  Conducted a school-based resilience enhancing program for seventh and eighth graders in the underserved downtown community of Chinatown, which included 215 students.

•  Produced "Healthy Kids, Happy Futures Program," a web-based CME course for pediatricians about the trauma related after-effects of 9/11.

•  Continued the CATS collaboration with the center's principal investigator, Dr. Raul Silva.

"We will continue to serve as a resource to 9/11 families, survivors, and rescue workers, conducting outreach, providing clinical services, and sharing information on recovery and resilience," said Nicole Morin, project director.

The articles are:
• Facing Fears and Sadness: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Childhood Traumatic Grief, by Elissa J. Brown, Michelle Y. Pearlman, and Robin F. Goodman.

• Letting the Story Unfold: A Case Study of Client-Centered Therapy for Childhood Traumatic Grief, by Robin F. Goodman, Alison V.  Morgan, Sandra Juriga, and Elissa J. Brown.

• Treatment of Childhood Traumatic Grief: Contributing to a Newly Emerging Condition in the Wake of Community Trauma by Judith Cohen, Robin F. Goodman, Elissa J. Brown, and Anthony Mannarino.

In the weeks following September 11, 2001, NCTSN members worked with therapists in New York to draft protocols for treating childhood traumatic grief. These efforts led the task force to produce child traumatic grief treatment manuals that describe group, individual, and family treatment interventions for children of all ages. NCTSN released these and other materials in July 2004 and they are currently available on the NCTSN Website.

Later this fall, the NCTSN Childhood Traumatic Grief Task Force will release further educational and clinical materials for the general public and professionals, including educational and training videos with an accompanying curriculum for service providers.

NCTSN Members Presented with 2004 Rieger Award for Best Paper in JAACAP
NCTSN members Judith Cohen and Anthony Mannarino, both with the Allegheny General Hospital Center for Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents, were recently awarded the 2004 Norbert and Charlotte Rieger Award for Scientific Achievement for best paper in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP).

The Norbert and Charlotte Rieger Award for Scientific Achievement gives $3,500 for the most significant paper by a child and adolescent psychiatrist published in JAACAP during the past year.

Cohen and Mannarino will be presenting this paper and receiving the award at the fifty-first Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, taking place October 19-24, 2004, in Washington, DC.

NCTSN's Colorado Center Sending Presenters to NADD Conference Margaret Charlton and Brian Tallant with the NCTSN's Aurora Mental Health Center in Colorado are presenting at the twenty-first Annual Conference and Exhibit Show for the National Association for the Dually Diagnosed (NADD). Their presentation, "Trauma Treatment and Developmental Disabilities," will occur on Thursday, October 28, 2004, from 1:45 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.

At the last year's NADD conference, Charlton and Tallant presented on the impact of trauma on children with developmental disabilities, especially their vulnerability to abuse and their difficulty in making a spontaneous recovery without intervention.

This year, their presentation will focus more on their work on adapted phase oriented trauma treatment. This presentation will include how they have begun adapting trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy into their treatment.

NADD was formed to address the needs of people dually diagnosed with developmental disabilities and mental illnesses. For more information on this conference, visit the NADD Website.

NCTSN Homelessness and Extreme Poverty Working Group Prepares Materials for All Network Meeting Debut
The Homelessness and Extreme Poverty Work Group is working to develop informational brochures in time for the upcoming All Network Meeting. Plans are to create two parallel documents, with one focusing on homelessness and one on extreme poverty.

These documents will include background information and statistics on the two populations, risk and protective factors, where trauma intersects with these groups, and policy and program implications for people working with the homeless and extremely poor.

It is the hope of the work group that these documents will be used not only to educate centers within the NCTSN, but also to reach a broader audience of policymakers, consumers, community stakeholders, and service providers.

For additional information on the brochures and/or the Homelessness and Extreme Poverty work group e-mail Noelani Radford from the National Center on Family Homelessness.

NCTSN's Early Trauma Treatment Network Presents for Georgetown Teleconferencing Series
Chandra Gosh Ippen and Michael Scheeringa, both with the NCTSN's Early Trauma Treatment Network, recently presented for the Georgetown Early Childhood Mental Health Series. Their live presentation focused on the treatment of trauma in your children and was broadcast to approximately one thousand-five hundred mental health professionals and early childhood specialists. To learn more about this presentation, e-mail Gosh Ippen or Scheeringa.

NCTSN's Wendt Center Selects New Executive Director
Susan Ley has been selected as the new executive director for the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing. Ley has been serving as the interim executive director and recently accepted the position permanently. Information about this NCTSN center can be found on the Wendt Center Website.

Post-Doctoral Fellowships in Traumatic Stress Research Now Available at NCTSN's South Carolina Center
The National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center (NCVC) at the Medical University of South Carolina invites applications for its NIMH-funded post-doctoral research training program. One to three openings are anticipated for the summer/fall of 2005. The fellowship is open to entry level and experienced professionals who want to develop research and clinical expertise in understanding violent crime and other forms of civilian trauma. The fellowship runs for one year with an opportunity for a second year renewal. Stipends are based on NIH-designated levels. For additional information about this opportunity, e-mail Daniel Smith, director of training, or call 843-792-2945.