National Center for Trauma-Informed Care

CMHS'S National Center for Trauma Informed Care (NCTIC)

CMHS’s National Center for Trauma-Informed Care (NCTIC) assists publicly-funded agencies, programs, and services in making the important cultural shift to a more trauma-informed environment that benefits both systems and consumers — an environment that is more supportive, comprehensively integrated, and empowering for trauma survivors.

Trauma Training and Technical Assistance
In order to facilitate trauma-informed services that support trauma survivors and consumers and the healing and recovery process, NCTIC offers free or low-cost trauma training and coordinates technical assistance to publicly-funded health and human service systems and programs in the United States.

Education and Outreach
NCTIC raises awareness of the prevalence of trauma and the benefit of trauma-informed programs and trauma-specific services for survivors, consumers, and caregivers through education and outreach.

Speakers Bureau
Talented experts, including survivors and consumers, are available to speak on this issue in conference speeches, workshop presentations, and media interviews.

Resources
NCTIC shares state-of-the-art trauma-informed care models and trauma-specific treatments and interventions including topic papers and research, links, and other materials to help educate and foster a deeper understanding of the impact of trauma — and the benefits of participating in trauma-informed care for caregivers, survivors, and consumers.

NCTIC Management
NCTIC was created in 2005 and is funded by the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) through contract number 280-03-2900 to Abt Associates. The mission of NCTIC is to provide trauma education and technical assistance to publicly-funded systems. The NCTIC management team includes: CMHS Federal Project Officer Susan Salasin; Gail Robinson, project director, Douglas Fuller, project manager, and William E. Schlenger, PhD, of Abt Associates; Wanda Finch and Pat Shea of CMHS; Mary Blake, Ruta Mazelis, and Jacki McKinney for consumer and survivor program development; Joan Gillece, Jenny Howes, and Kevin Huckshorn with the National Technical Assistance Center at the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors for training and technical assistance; and Helga West and Randy West of Witness Justice for education and outreach.

The History of NCTIC
Violence knows no boundaries with regard to age, race, ethnicity, economics, gender, geography, or sexual orientation. Trauma may be experienced in the aftermath of violence, and places people “at risk” for damaging psychological and social injuries.

Trauma is now understood to be an almost universal experience of public mental health and substance abuse and social service consumers. The need to address trauma has become a fundamental obligation for effective public mental health services delivery, and is increasingly recognized as essential for the growth and recovery of trauma survivors.

Symptoms of unadressed trauma include:- Anxiety - Depression - Eating Disorders - Self Injury - Substance Use

CMHS’s National Center for Trauma-Informed Care (NCTIC) was created in 2005 to offer trauma training, technical assistance, education and outreach, a speakers’ bureau, and various types of expert topical resources to stimulate and support change in publicly-funded systems and programs. NCTIC is dedicated to the proposition that, with a better integration of trauma into public health services, more trauma survivors and consumers will find their path to healing and wellness. Especially in settings where trauma services are already available, if these services are provided in a context of an agency that has not adopted a trauma-informed management and training orientation, then the effectiveness of the trauma services actually offered can be undercut. With a greater public commitment to trauma-informed programs and systems for survivors, a wide range of health, behavioral health, and social problems will be lessened for generations to come.

NCTIC (f/k/a the Center on Women, Violence and Trauma) is rooted in a long-term commitment by CMHS, through its Community Support Program, to improve public mental health service system responses to consumers and trauma survivors. CMHS sponsored three major initiatives that laid the foundation and contributed to the momentum behind the formation of NCTIC: - Dare to Vision Conference - The Women, Co-occurring Disorders and Violence Study (WCDVS) - Dare to Act Conference