Family Involvement Center (FIC), a family-run, community service agency (CSA) and licensed behavioral health outpatient clinic, providing services in Arizona for over 18 years acknowledges trauma is not simply a “now” issue, it is longstanding. SAMHSA funding will serve 2,100 children who have experienced trauma and provide 400 hours of innovative trauma informed training. Being Family-Run is our foundation to expand trauma informed, holistic health services statewide.
Our Family Driven Trauma Informed Program (FDTIP) will serve children age 0-17 who have experienced traumatic events. A survey by America's Health Rankings determined over 30% of Arizona’s children, ages 0-17, have two or more adverse childhood experiences (Overcoming Adverse Childhood Events, Arizona Adverse Childhood Experiences-ACE Consortium), which lead to toxic stress affecting their long-term health and well-being. The effects of not receiving treatment are evidenced by roughly 100 percent of children entering foster care require mental health support due to trauma. (Arizona Department of Corrections, 2019). FIC will address these challenges incorporating three key programs all of which utilize a family-centered approach, to include: individual and group counseling, parent peer support and youth services.
As biological, adoptive, foster, kinship, multicultural, multigenerational, and other diverse families come to trust us to help navigate their path to unity, trauma past and present are often barriers. Trauma Informed Care (TIC) involves recognizing, understanding, and responding to the effects of trauma on all family members throughout their lifespan. “To help the child, you often need to help the parent first.” – Jane Kallal, FIC Founding Mother
We will outreach, engage, and assess children who have experienced traumatic events to offer services, connect to resources and educate on the effects of trauma and the healing pathways available. We will assist with access, eligibility, and service referrals, as well as provide services based on Trauma Based Relational Interventions (TBRI), Neurosequential Model of Caregiving (NMC), and other appropriate evidence based practice (EBP) as identified by the needs of the child and parent/primary caregiver. Our training department has a long history of training EBP’s Parenting Wisely and Triple P. These EBPs are foundational to our family driven approach promoting a safe, stigma- free environment for children and families who experienced trauma and may not otherwise have opportunities like these for healing. FIC will build trauma informed resources through training using certified ACE, NMC, and TRBI trainers as well as partnering with Arizona Trauma Institute to expand capacity for future trauma service provision.