This workshop will describe efforts to implement a trauma-informed approach to residential treatment and an on-campus school environment. Over a five-year period, this multifaceted initiative resulted in substantial reductions in both physical management episodes and staff injuries. Research in the area of trauma-informed practices within residential schools is still in its infancy.

Objectives:

1. Participants will learn about the national movement toward use of trauma-informed strategies.

2. Participants will learn about the benefits of training interdisciplinary staff in Risking Connection®, an established curriculum for working with traumatized youth.

3. Participants will learn about numerous trauma-informed milieu and/or classroom approaches which can be integrated into existing evidence-based models of treatment.

4. Participants will learn about future directions in trauma treatment for youth, including several body-based interventions.

5. Participants will learn ways to anticipate and overcome many of the institutional challenges of implementing trauma-informed treatment. 

Presenter:

Robert Davis, Psy.D. Director of Clinical Services, Devereux Rutland, MA

Dr. Robert Davis has served as the Director of Clinical Services at Devereux as well as the Chief Psychologist of Devereux’s APPIC-approved Predoctoral Clinical Training Program. He also is a Faculty Trainer for the Risking Connection® Training Program for which he has trained multidisciplinary staff from congregate care settings throughout the country.

The workshop will be from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The cost is $45 for Members and $65 for Non-members. (Lunch is Included in registration fee).

To Register: copy this link into your web browser:

http://maaps.org/cde.cfm?event=300568

The presentation will be held 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM, (Registration starting at 8:30AM) at the Lazare Auditorium of the UMass Medical School in Worcester, MA. The registration deadline is Monday, March 29th, 2010. To register please contact Annabelle Lim at Email:  annabelle.lim@massmail.state.ma.us or Phone: 617.626.8087. An email confirmation with directions will be sent upon registration. CEU applications have been submitted for: Licensed Mental Health Counselors, Psychologists, Nurses, & Social Workers. Hope to see you there!

Our next training will be March 10, 11 and 12th. To register contact Megan Albanese at 860 832 5514.

However, relief agency workers can suffer the same psychological trauma as the people they are helping. And they often ignore these feelings in the face of the work at hand.

The intensity of being dispatched to a mass emergency can cause volunteers to develop problems that include sleep disorders, social withdrawal, substance abuse, anxiety and difficulty trusting people. They may try to lose themselves in their work, even if that work is what’s stressing them.

Aid organizations in Haiti know about this phenomenon, called vicarious trauma, and they’re preparing for it.

After the first week on the ground, volunteers for CARE are showing signs of the trauma, said Wills Moore, director of human resources business partnerships for CARE. He has been getting reports from people who are either really unemotional or really emotional all the time, which could be signs of vicarious trauma.

“People might either shut down emotionally or get very sensitive emotionally and cry at the drop of a hat,” said Laurie Anne Pearlman, former president of the Trauma Research, Education, and Training Institute Inc. and author of several books about vicarious trauma. “The hallmark of both direct and indirect or vicarious trauma is disrupted spirituality, a loss of meaning or hope.”

Many people on the staff at CARE are going through trauma, and some have lost relatives, said Rigo Giron, associate vice president for strategic initiatives at CARE.

“It’s a hard place for them because they are committed to provide relief, but at the same time they need to recover from the trauma they face. They’re very stressed,” he said. “They’re very traumatized. It’s hard for them to overcome that.”

Mental health specialists with the American Red Cross are primarily in Haiti to work with earthquake victims, but are also looking out for fellow volunteers, said Jonathan Aiken, spokesman for the Red Cross.

The University of Miami’s Project Medishare also is coordinating the travel of mental health professionals to Haiti beginning next week to help quake victims, but also to assist other aid workers if needed, a representative said.

Disaster and emergency workers often get an adrenaline rush that powers them to work without rest. That, combined with a strict ethic of working as much as possible, is “a recipe for trouble” for both the helpers and the people they’re serving, Pearlman said.

“After we’re overworked for a certain amount of time, as we all know, our brains don’t work as well, and we’re not making such good judgments, we’re not making such good decisions, and then pretty soon you’re on the list of people who need to be taken care of, rather than the list of people who can help,” she said.

It helps to have people encouraging volunteers to take breaks now and then, although it’s also hard for the workers amid the disaster relief to heed that message, she said.

This is the kind of advice that Moore said he received before his departure for Haiti on Wednesday. A staff psychologist told him to try to make himself take breaks while doing earthquake relief — for instance, exercising, reading or otherwise getting away from the situation briefly. Journaling and communicating with family and friends are also “good, almost cathartic ways” of coping, Moore said.

Aid workers and volunteers who have psychiatric histories, major life stresses or traumas of their own are more vulnerable to trauma in Haiti, and may need more help, Pearlman said. A personal trauma history in itself is not a bad thing — and people in the trauma field are more likely to have one — but it’s a problem when they haven’t worked through it, she said.

There are ways relief agencies can help: If an organization has policies restricting the number of hours before a break, or before leaving the disaster site altogether, that can help, she said.

“It’s hard to say, ‘Well, look, everybody, I see that you folks don’t have food or water, but I need to go rest for a few hours,’ ” she said. “But it’s very important to do it.”

CNN’s Jacque Wilson contributed to this report. Find story at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/01/22/haiti.vicarious.stress/index.html

 Dr. Brown presented a full-day training entitled “Promoting Healthy Sexualtiy for Sexually Abusive Youth” sponsored by the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections.  The audience was largely from their St. Anthony facility that treats general delinquent youth as well as sexual sex offenders.  There were also parole officers, case managers, and school personnel from systems that work with juvenile corrections.  Topics covered in the training included:  What’s Your Opinion About Promoting Healthy Sexuality with JSOs; Does Our Treatment Promote Healthy Sexuality; Traditional versus Holistic/Integrated Approach to Treating JSOs; Hurt People…Hurt People — The Connection Between Childhood Trauma and Sexual Development; Exploring Our Own Sexual Learning; What Are We Striving For: Characteristics of a Sexually Healthy Adolescent; Systemic Interventions to Promote Healthy Sexualtiy with JSOs; Sex Education and Sex Education Strategies; Grooming Paranoia; Healing Attachment Wounds — Route to Healthy Sexual Development. 

The training included lecture, application exercises, self exploration exercise, and numerous video clips exploring both the serious and humorous side of sexuality.

Lynn’s topic for the Day of Learning and Sharing was Shame. She covered guilt vs. shame; shame as “The eyes turned inward”; the origins of chronic shame; anger + shame = rage; shameful behavior makes sense out of chronic shame; interventions; dealing with our emotions and countertransference; making amends and the power of groups.

Lynn is a marvellous speaker, warm and human, very knowledgeable about our populations, and so respectful of both the clients and the workers. She is also quite funny.

Many participants wrote on their evaluations that they got more than they expected from the day.

The community of trainers is very powerful. It is inspiring to see so many great minds working together to change the world and to give our clients the best possible treatment.

Volume 20—Number 7. Psychological Science, the flagship journal of the Association for Psychological Science, is established as a leader in its field, with a citation ranking/impact factor that places it in the top 10 psychology journals worldwide.

The journal publishes authoritative articles of interest across all of scientific psychology’s subdisciplines, including the behavioral, clinical, cognitive, neural, and social sciences. In addition to these full-length articles, Psychological Science also features summaries of new research developments. 

The article is entitled:

Genuine Positive Change?

Patricia Frazier,1 Howard Tennen,2 Margaret Gavian,1 Crystal Park,3 Patricia Tomich,4 and Ty Tashiro5 

Abstract: In this study, we evaluated the validity of self reported posttraumatic growth (PTG) by assessing the relation between perceived growth and actual growth from pre- to post trauma. Undergraduate students completed measures tapping typical PTG domains at Time 1 and Time 2 (2 months later).We compared change in those measures with scores on the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996) for those participants who reported a traumatic event between Time 1 and Time 2 (n5122). PTGI scores generally were unrelated to actual growth in PTG-related domains. Moreover, perceived growth was associated with increased distress from pre- to posttrauma, whereas actual growth was related to decreased distress, a pattern suggesting that perceived and actual growth reflect different processes. Finally, perceived (but not actual) growth was related to positive reinterpretation coping. Thus, the PTGI, and perhaps other retrospective measures, does not appear to measure actual pre- to post trauma change.

You can down load a copy of the full article here:

psychscience