The Center for Prevention and Early Trauma Treatment (CPETT)
We are thrilled to announce that the Child First application to SAMHSA for a National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative (NCTSI) - Category II grant has been funded! Child First will create a national Treatment and Service Adaptation (TSA) Center, the Center for Prevention and Early Trauma Treatment (CPETT), which will address persistent gaps in prevention through early treatment of very young children and families exposed to traumatic stress. The goal of this training grant is to work collaboratively with communities to integrate a continuum of care for trauma prevention, identification, clinical consultation, and multi-level intervention into the early childhood systems of care in five US regions. Child First will receive a total of $3 million over five years to do this important work.
In order to achieve these goals, Child First will adapt our extensive early childhood mental health and trauma trainings and develop a new web-based Early Childhood Mental Health Trauma Training (ECMHTT). We will offer training to multiple providers within a region or community, including home visiting, early care and education, pediatrics, and child welfare. Our goal is to create a trauma-informed community in which all providers understand the impact of trauma on young children, increase development-enhancing trauma-informed practices within their own services, identify children needing further treatment, and refer to relationship-based therapeutic interventions that address social-emotional/mental health needs and heal trauma. In order to add to the continuum of care, Child First will provide training in a range of early childhood diagnostic and therapeutic modalities, including Child First, Child-Parent Psychotherapy, Circle of Security, and Diagnostic Classification: 0-5.
Child First, an evidence-based, two generation, home-based, trauma and mental health model, will serve the most vulnerable young children (prenatal - age 5) and families experiencing the highest levels of traumatic stress and concrete challenges. The Child First two-pronged approach employs teams consisting of a licensed mental health clinician and a care coordinator to 1) decrease the multiple environmental stressors through intensive care coordination, while building parental executive functioning and 2) establish a nurturing, responsive parent-child relationship, which heals trauma and builds a protective shield for the child, enhancing resilience.
We are extremely happy to inform you that Salam Soliman, PsyD, who has been an extraordinarily valuable member of our National Program Office for over five years, will be taking the new position as CPETT Director and Co-PI of this grant.
With warm regards,
Darcy Lowell, MD
Child First
Founder and CEO
