The championing access to trauma-informed-treatments to achieve lowcountry youth services transformation (catalyst) project aims to reduce the impact of trauma on children's lives by providing and…

The championing access to trauma-informed-treatments to achieve lowcountry youth services transformation (catalyst) project aims to reduce the impact of trauma on children's lives by providing and increasing access to effective trauma treatments and services for children and their families while also improving the quality of services by applying them with improved cultural and racial equity. A total of 6,644 unique individuals in the south carolina lowcountry will be served during the proposed project. The proposed project will achieve these aims by 1) providing outreach, engagement and prevention services with 500 children and 500 caregivers, 2) providing screening with 5,589 children and effective trauma treatments for 627 child victims of child abuse, and their families, in our service area, and 3) improving the quality of trauma treatment and services delivered and improve child outcomes by learning and applying ebps from a cultural and racial equity lens. The catalyst project will be headquartered at the DEE norton lowcountry children's center, INC. ("DEE norton"), the only accredited children's advocacy center (CAC) serving child trauma victims in charleston county. DEE norton is a specialty outpatient child maltreatment center that serves over 1,500 children each year. Child maltreatment is a public health problem with clearly documented negative physical and mental health effects for child victims (e.g., felitti ET AL., 1998). Untreated childhood posttraumatic stress disorder is associated with other serious psychiatric problems in adolescence, including mood disorders, delinquency, anger management and impulse control difficulties, suicidal ideation and self-injury, and drug and alcohol abuse. These clinical correlates can persist and become exacerbated in adulthood (danielson ET AL., 2006). Children of color are disproportionately represented in child welfare, yet because of systemic racism, families of color may distrust the legal, social welfare, and mental health systems (office of the surgeon general, 2001). Other cultural groups, such as sexual minorities (e.g., lgbtq) are at high risk but similarly underutilize mental health services (JEE & simms, 2006). There is a clear need to increase access to evidence-based trauma services and to ensure services are culturally sensitive. The proposed project will increase access to evidence-based treatments, with particular attention to improving the quality of and outcomes for children receiving treatment from diverse backgrounds, including racial and sexual minorities. To achieve service transformation, 55 child-serving professionals will be trained on quality improvements during the project. Further, the proposed project will directly impact children ages 2-17 by 5,889 children receiving trauma-informed screening and referral services. We further expect that 627 children will receive evidence-based, trauma-informed treatment, over the course of the proposed project.