Recovery strategies involve stabilizing and restoring all behavioral health supports in a coordinated effort to returning children and their families to their pre-disaster level of functioning, and/or a new normal.

Building Hope and Support for Recovery with Families

Behavioral health clinicians can share hope that recovery is possible. Interventions can mitigate the physical and mental health impact of toxic stress. It can be helpful to explain to patients and families that neural plasticity or brain plasticity allows the neural network in our brain to change through growth and reorganization. This means that our brains have the capacity to make new pathways with ongoing support and opportunities to heal. In treatment, we do not attempt to erase the trauma, but rather conceptualize the experience as only one part of the patient’s history or story. It is important to share with families that there are evidence-based interventions to treat posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, and depressive disorders. The focus in therapy is to shift from experiencing cognitive distortions or negative thoughts to developing more adaptive ways to manage overwhelming feelings, thoughts and triggers.

Licensed Behavioral Health Clinical Interventions

Trauma-focused therapies use different techniques to help the child process the traumatic experience. Some of these techniques involve creating a trauma narrative to decrease reactivity in recalling memories of the event and reconstructing cognitive distortions or changing unhelpful beliefs about the trauma and resolving feelings related to grief and integrating positive memories (e.g. Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy [TF-CBT]; Trauma and Grief Component Therapy for Adolescents [TGCT-A]; Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing [EMDR]). All treatment modalities use coping skills for affect modulation and support familial attachments and safety nets. Interventions can vary in terms of recommended age range for implementation, modality (individual or group), and extent to which caregivers are involved. Interventions to target particular symptoms associated with trauma, such as sleep disruption, can also aid in recovery (e.g. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia [CBT-I]; Imagery Rehearsal Therapy [IRT]).

Actionable Steps

Take steps to determine what type of training is required to provide evidence-based trauma intervention.  Identify online and in-person training, as well as opportunities for follow up consultation in an effort to support integrity to the treatment process. Share knowledge and resources with patients and their families to guide involvement in best practice treatment intervention. Possible trainings of interest include: TF-CBT Web Training: https://tfcbt2.musc.edu/, TF-CBT Certification Program: https://tfcbt.org/, and training through the EMDR Institute: https://www.cebc4cw.org/topic/trauma-treatment-client-level-interventions-child-adolescent/. For further information on evidence-based treatments available for children and families exposed to trauma, visit: The California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare: https://www.cebc4cw.org/search/results/?keyword=emdr.