National Native Children's Trauma Center

TTA overview

We offer training and technical assistance (TTA) to tribal, federal, state, and private agencies on the impacts, prevention, and mitigation of childhood traumatic stress, along with other forms of TTA that align with trauma-informed principles. While we seek to tailor our TTA to the requesting tribe or organization and are eager to support the development of customized implementation plans, our offerings fall roughly into four broad, mutually reinforcing categories:

Foundational trauma, prevention, and healing trainings

• Trauma and Resilience in Tribal Communities: An introduction to research on trauma as it relates to AI/AN people and tribal communities, including trauma types, brain science, developmental and behavioral effects, and the interconnected nature of historical and current traumas. Also includes practice scenarios and significant attention to resilience strategies. Length: 4 hours.

• Historical Trauma and Its Current Impacts: An overview of the history, theory, and research related to the collective traumas experienced by AI/AN populations and the ongoing effects of these traumas, coupled with a focus on local resilience and strategies for promoting collective healing. Length: 3 hours.

• Secondary Traumatic Stress and Self-Care: An introduction to Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) and related workplace disorders experienced by those in the helping professions, coupled with best practices for mitigating these disorders at the individual and the organizational levels. Length: 3 hours.

• Building Your Bounce: Promoting Adult Resilience: Developed by the Devereaux Center for Resilient Children, this training supports caregivers in recognizing the importance of their own resilience and how it relates to their ability to provide quality care to youth. Areas of focus include understanding characteristics of resilience, protective factors, and risk factors; utilizing the Devereaux Adult Resilience Survey (DARS), a self-assessment; and exploring everyday strategies for strengthening resilience. Length: 8 hours (4 two-hour modules).

• Fostering Resilience in the Face of Loss: Developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to address the wide-ranging losses experienced by youth, this training is intended to be delivered directly to young people for the purpose of helping them contextualize those losses and build resilience. Length: 1.5 hours.

• Cultural Humility: A training for agency staff and service providers who have limited knowledge of tribal cultures and histories, intended to encourage culturally appropriate approaches to supporting Native children and families. Length: 3 hours.

• Trauma ScreenTIME: Best Practices in Screening Children for Trauma: An overview of base practices for screening children for trauma including: the importance of screening for trauma and traumatic stress; developing a screening process for your program; selecting a screening measure; best practices when conducting a screening with a child and family; and using the results of screening to help children and families. Length: 2.5 hours.

youth and family engagement Trainings

Using Medicine Wheel teachings as a foundational framework, our Walking the Four Directions (WFD) training series addresses the integration of family voice into tribal youth programming. The four WFD trainings can be delivered as a package or individually in schools and youth-serving agencies, as well as to groups of parents, foster parents, or other support providers.

• Walking the Four Directions: A Traditional View of Discipline: A training in using Medicine Wheel teachings for developing positive, strengths-based, culturally responsive discipline strategies. Length: 2-3 days depending on choice of format.

• Walking the Four Directions: Implementing Culturally-Based Wraparound Services: A training in using Medicine Wheel teachings to provide individualized community-based support and services for children and families. Length: 2 days for informational portions only or 4-5 days for full training resulting in readiness for implementation.

system-specific trauma-informed trainings

schools

• Trauma-Informed Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (TI-PBIS): Training in a three-tiered, trauma-informed PBIS framework for supporting students socially and emotionally. Length: 4 hours for introductory training. Follow-along TA available for full implementation and data/evaluation support.

• CBITS / CBITS for American Indian Youth (CBITS-AI): Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS; Jaycox, Langley, & Hoover, 2018) is a clinical group intervention based on components of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and intended for middle and high school students exposed to trauma. CBITS-AI is the NNCTC’s cultural adaptation of CBITS, approved by the developers and written by a committee of cultural experts. CBITS-AI offers revisions responsive to American Indian students. Both CBITS and CBITS-AI can be further adapted to be locally responsive. Length: 8 hours for introductory training. Follow-along TA available as implementation proceeds.

• Bounce Back: A clinical group intervention for elementary school students exposed to trauma, adapted from CBITS by Audra Langley and Lisa Jaycox (2015). Length: 6 hours for introductory training. Follow-along TA available.

• Students, Trauma, and Resiliency (STAR): A classroom-based trauma-informed, social emotional learning curriculum for supporting middle and high school students. Length: 4 hours for introductory training. Follow-along TA available.

• Bounce Back for Classrooms (BBC): Adapted from Bounce Back by NNCTC staff, BBC is a classroom-based trauma-informed, social emotional learning curriculum for supporting students in grades 2-5. Length: 6 hours for introductory training. Follow-along TA available.

• Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competency (ARC) for Schools: Adapted from ARC, a trauma treatment model developed by Margaret Blaustein and Kristine Kinniburgh (2010), ARC for Schools is an organizational framework that can be applied at the whole-school level as well as in in-school clinical settings. Length: 3 hours for introductory training. Follow-along TA and additional training available depending on individual schools’ needs.

• Bullying Prevention: Training in best practices for preventing and responding to bullying utilizing team-based methods, policy and procedure modifications, the creation of student behavioral expectations related to bullying, and coaching and problem solving. Length: 4 hours.

child welfare & juvenile justice

• Trauma-Informed Tribal Court Self-Assessment: An NNCTC adaptation of a National Child Traumatic Stress Network product, this tool allows tribal courts and other juvenile justice stakeholders to assess organizational readiness for trauma-informed change projects and helps identify operational priorities for implementation planning. The NNCTC often facilitates the assessment process and assists with implementation planning. Length: 6 hours for assessment. NNCTC staff typically produce a report with recommendations within 2-3 weeks.

• Think Trauma: A Training for Working with Justice-Involved Youth: A National Child Traumatic Stress Network curriculum for training juvenile justice agency staff to be responsive to the trauma-related needs of the young people in their systems. The NNCTC has developed adaptations for tribal systems, including interactive case studies set in tribal communities. Length: 2 days. Can be adapted for your setting and time constraints.

• Understanding the Spirit Behind the Indian Child Welfare Act and Strategies to Support Its Implementation: An overview of the history of historical trauma and how it relates to parent-child interaction in communities today. Offering foundational knowledge on the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and the spirit behind its enactment. Paying special attention to vital aspects of the ICWA and offering strategies to support compliance and partnering with families through active efforts. Length: 4 hours.

• Essential Elements of a Trauma-Informed Tribal Child Welfare Agency: An adapted curriculum from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network that addresses the diversity of Tribal Child Welfare Programs. This training outlines eight essential elements that may be used as tools to cultivate trauma-informed Tribal child welfare staff and programs. Acknowledging the challenges of working within your home community and offering tips for trauma-informed partnering with parents/caregivers and other resource providers. This training may be delivered as a package or individually depending on choice of format. Length: 2-3 days/2-3-hour individual sessions.   

• Trauma-Informed Supervision for Tribal Child Welfare: A foundational training offered for supervisors of Tribal Child Welfare Programs. Participants will learn about adaptive leadership, reflective supervision and the value of incorporating practices that reflect community values. Time is also devoted to recognizing the signs and symptoms of secondary traumatic stress in staff and within the work environment. Length: 3 hours. 

• Cultivating Trauma-Responsive and Healing-Informed Tribal Child Welfare Programs: An overview of the Adverse Childhood Experiences study and collective traumas experience by American Indian/Alaska Native Peoples that lends understanding to the trauma of the families served in the Tribal child welfare system. Participants will identify ways that the workforce can support children and families by cultivating a trauma-responsive and healing-informed Programs. Leading with a strength-based approach to uplifting the well-being and resilience of families. Length: 4 hours.

• Resource Parent Curriculum: A National Child Traumatic Stress Network curriculum for training guardians and caregivers to be responsive to the trauma-related needs of children in out-of-home placements. The NNCTC has adapted the curriculum to make it relevant for a broader array of caregivers and to provide tribal case scenarios. Length: 8 hours. An abbreviated version of the curriculum can be delivered in 4 hours.

• Family Group Conferencing: Training in the development of family group conferencing within any tribal program for at-risk youth. Family groups empower the family to develop strategies for supporting youth safety and resilience. Length: 8 hours. Ongoing TA available as implementation proceeds.

• Trauma-Informed Tribal Child Advocacy: A training designed to increase the cultural responsiveness and trauma knowledge of child advocacy centers serving tribal children. Length: 3 hours.

• Trauma-Informed Family Court Orientation: A training designed to orient social workers in preparation for tribal child protection court proceedings, including a mock trial component. Length: 2 hours.

tailored trauma-informed TTa packages

• Trauma-Resilient Schools: NNCTC school-based staff collaborate with tribal schools on the development of culturally focused, multi-tiered, trauma-informed systems change programming. These projects can take many different forms depending on the needs and goals of the school system and community. Projects typically include onsite leadership with community/cultural representation, a range of assessment options, policy and procedure change recommendations, customized training plans, ongoing TA as implementation proceeds, and evaluation support. Project length: 1 year for initial implementation, 3 years for sustainable system change.

• Other Youth-Serving Agencies: We are available for collaboration with any tribal youth-serving agency. These include child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health, primary care, and child advocacy agencies, among others. Activities may include system readiness assessments, trauma-informed organizational assessments, policy and procedure reviews, training and system change recommendations, instructional coaching, booster trainings, data and evaluation support, trauma-focused review of physical spaces, inclusion of local cultural experts into programming, selection and adaptation of screening and other practice tools, implementation consultation, and facilitation of onsite leadership teams.