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Trauma-Informed Care Leads to More Integrated Care
Our inattention to the emotional dimensions of health and illness is a public health perfect storm, especially for the mentally ill. This group of people experiences high rates of illness, suffers greatly, uses an enormous amount of our precious healthcare dollars, and dies 25 years earlier than...
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Integrating Trauma and Addiction Treatment
Individuals struggling with addiction who also work in a first responder capacity face unique challenges in addiction treatment and recovery. Often referred to as uniformed professionals, these individuals are very likely to work in high-stress environments with an increased risk of physical...
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Responding to First Responders: Even Superheroes Need Help Sometimes
As we contemplated writing about the job-related behavioral health needs of first responders, we were reminded of the post 9/11 poster showing two swaggering 6-year-old boys wearing blankets as capes with the tagline “Even Superheroes Need Help Sometime.” This poster was part of an advertising...
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Addressing Trauma and Substance Abuse with Peer-Led Programs
People who experience trauma, either as children or later in life as adults, are at a higher risk of developing mental health and substance use problems and chronic physical health conditions. Exposure to childhood trauma includes physical, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse; violence; neglect;...
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Partners in Integration: Addressing Need by Supporting NYC Workers
In today’s evolving healthcare system, there is a growing need for an integrated healthcare workforce to better address the needs of patients with complex and interrelated medical and behavioral health conditions. However, workforce development supporting skills enhancement around integrated...
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An Experienced Social Worker’s First Natural Disaster
The call went out, “Are you ready to roll?” This was the question that my director at the Nassau County Office of Mental Health, Chemical Dependency and Developmental Disabilities Services (the Office) asked me the day before Hurricane Sandy hit Nassau County as we prepared to make our rounds...
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Meeting Families as Far as They Can Go: A Values-Centered Approach to Treating Sexually Abused Children and Their Families
This paper describes a sexual abuse-specific treatment program for children that combines creative art therapy groups for the abused child with concurrent supportive, psychoeducational therapy groups for non-offending parents. This program, led by Northside Center for Child Development’s Project...
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Trauma, Stress and the Financial Crisis: Impact and Intervention
Is a financial crisis traumatic? In her writing and teaching, noted grief and loss researcher Katherine Shear, MD has defined grief as something good leaving our lives and trauma as something bad coming into our lives. The current crisis has elements of both grief and trauma, especially for those...
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Treating Trauma Survivors in a Family Mental Health Clinic
Westchester Jewish Community Services’ (WJCS) Treatment Center for Trauma and Abuse has been in the forefront in Westchester County in providing child and adult survivors of child sexual abuse with effective treatment for almost thirty years. The program began in the Hartsdale clinic with just...
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Challenges in the Assessment of Trauma Among Individuals with Disabilities
Data from the field of disabilities suggests that individuals diagnosed with disabilities may be at higher risk for being exposed to and experiencing events that could precipitate the development of trauma symptoms when compared to their nondisabled counterparts (Strauser, Lustig & Uruk, 2007)....
