The Beat: Trauma-informed Care

February 04, 2013

In our latest podcast, we hear from Bill Martin, executive director of Waterford Country School, a Connecticut youth shelter that will soon finish the three-year implementation of the CARE Model. He talks about how this evidence-based practice enables Waterford to better serve youth.
Listen to the podcast.

January 31, 2013

Image of the book Girls Like Us.“Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale”
by Rachel Lloyd

In this memoir, a well-known advocate exposes the horrors of sex trafficking, and tells us what it will take to create a society that values and protects girls. NCFY read it, and we tell you why we think it’s a good read for youth workers.

Rachel Lloyd grew up in England with a depressive, alcoholic mother and her series of violent boyfriends. By 14, she had dropped out of school. Faking her age, she did factory work to keep a roof over their heads.

“The pressure to have a baby, at fourteen, already feels intense,” she writes in her memoir “Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where...

January 30, 2013

Photograph of a Native American teen girl.As we continue to learn more about the reasons young people may be sexually exploited, some researchers say Native American young women may be particularly at risk.

VAWNet, an online resource of the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, in 2011 reviewed the research on Native women and sex trafficking (PDF, 781KB). The authors of the review point to a 2007 analysis of police records in Hennepin County, MN, which includes Minneapolis. Native women accounted for nearly a quarter of the prostitution arrests that year—a percentage more than 12 times their representation in the...

January 22, 2013

Photograph of a red balloonIn our latest podcast, we talk to Dr. Carl Lejuez, a University of Maryland researcher who uses a video game to study why and when people take risks. We asked about his findings and their implications for traumatized youth.

Listen to the podcast.

January 09, 2013

CARE: Children and Residential Experiences, Image shows an adult hand reaching down to take a child's hand.The Epworth Children’s Home in Columbia, SC, has housed at-risk youth since 1895. The home’s long history, and the traditions that go along with it, are a point of pride. But as the organization’s centennial passed, Epworth’s leaders felt they needed a more cohesive approach to working with youth.

“We had an eclectic model,” Executive Director Lee Porter says, “which really means we didn’t have a model at all. We had nothing to tie our practices together and move us forward.”

In other words, the time had come to modernize Epworth’s youth work practices.

...

December 14, 2012

Photograph of a young woman and her mother talking to a therapist.Change in Parent- and Child-Reported Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors Among Substance Abusing Runaways: The Effects of Family and Individual Treatments.” Forthcoming from Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Posted online September 2012.

What it’s about: Researchers wanted to know whether certain types of psychotherapy would reduce mental health issues among runaway and homeless youth with drug and alcohol problems. They recruited 179 young people ages 12 to 17 from an emergency shelter in a Midwestern city.

Young people received one of three different types of therapies: motivational interviewing, the...

December 12, 2012

Thumbnail image of a pie chart showing the seven Sanctuary Commitments: Growth & change, democracy, social responsibility, open communication, social learning, emotional intelligence, nonviolence.NCFY recently profiled two organizations that have put in place the evidence-based Sanctuary Model of youth care. In our newest Voices from the Field podcast, we get the history of the approach. Dr. Sandra Bloom was one of the co-creators of Sanctuary, and in this interview she explains the design and philosophy of her approach, and why its focus on trauma-informed care can be effective for youth and staff alike.

Listen to the podcast and read the transcript.

November 26, 2012

Photograph of a police officer standing with two smiling young women.At a recent community symposium on the commercial sexual exploitation of young people in Dallas, the audience witnessed an unrehearsed demonstration of just how far the city has come in its approach to combating trafficking.

A police detective explained that he and his colleagues no longer detain girls and charge them with prostitution. Today, police treat the girls as victims, taking them to shelters where they can get social services that prepare them for a different life.

It turned out he had once, back before the change in philosophy, arrested one of the young women who shared the panel stage with him.

“Just a few years ago the girls and the Dallas police were at odds,” says Katie Pedigo,...

November 20, 2012

Photograph of a young woman smiling and doing yoga.Certified yoga instructor Casadi Marino teaches others how to achieve yoga's benefts, but her expertise extends beyond the mat. Working at the Regional Research Institute for Human Services, she has studied the effects of yoga on mental health. Now a doctoral student at Portland State University’s School of Social Work, Marino has also seen yoga’s impact on her own life as she maintains her recovery from bipolar disorder and substance abuse.

Earlier this year, we read Marino’s article called “Yoga for Youth in Trauma Recovery” (PDF, 391KB). In it, she reviews the literature on how yoga affects youth with...

November 15, 2012

Photograph of a teen mother cuddling her infant.The Family Spirit Trial for American Indian Teen Mothers and Their Children: CBPR Rationale, Design, Methods and Baseline Characteristics” (abstract), Prevention Science, Vol. 13, No. 5, October 2012.

What it’s about: This study describes preliminary findings from the Family Spirit trial, a home-visiting program designed to promote health and healthy behavior and reduce drug use among Native American teen mothers and their children. More than 300 pregnant Native American girls between the ages of 12 and 19 were randomly selected, in a process similar to a coin toss, to receive either the Family Spirit intervention along with...

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