Project CARES: Increasing Access to Effective Trauma-Focused Treatment Through Training and Self-Care - Project CARES: Increasing Access to Effective Trauma-Focused Treatment Through Training and Self-Care seeks to increase the availability of evidence-based therapy services for the racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse youth who have experienced trauma in the urban, suburban, and rural areas of Southern New Jersey (NJ) as well as other regions nationwide. This project will implement two programs to achieve this goal. First, the grant will support a fellowship program that will recruit and train 16 postgraduate mental health professionals (four each year in years two through five) to participate in one-year full-time paid training experiences. Fellows will provide direct services and engage in professional development activities, including participation in four multidisciplinary team meetings, two trauma-focused presentations to child protective services, and monthly diversity, equity, and inclusion meetings. CARES will create and refine the materials, resources, and curriculum for the fellowship program and make them available to other organizations that want to create similar programs. The fellows and their supervisors will directly serve 438 youth (ages 3 to 18 years) and their nonoffending caregivers in the seven southern counties of NJ during the grant period (30 in year one, 102 each year in years two through five) through evidence-based engagement strategies and the provision of TF-CBT via telehealth and in-person with a successful completion rate of at least 75 percent. Youth who complete TF-CBT will demonstrate reductions in posttraumatic stress and behavior problems. Fellows will demonstrate fidelity to the TF-CBT model. Second, the grant will fund the refinement and delivery of an evidence-based self-care intervention, referred to as PRACTICE What You Preach, to 160 (40 each year in years one through four) clinicians, supervisors, and senior leaders in NJ and, in conjunction with our NCTSI II partners, across the nation. Participants will demonstrate enhanced coping skills and TF-CBT competency and fidelity, and reductions in secondary traumatic stress (STS) and turnover intention, which is particularly crucial at this time given that the pandemic has added significant additional stress and necessitated a new service delivery format (i.e., telehealth). Recent research findings suggest that the proposed self-care intervention is associated with increases in clinicians’/supervisors’ use of the effective coping skills and reductions in STS. Given that STS can impair clinical effectiveness and lead to high staff turnover rates, this selfcare intervention has the potential to greatly reduce turnover and enhance the effectiveness of treatment services delivered. In sum, both the fellowship program, through its cutting-edge training, engagement, and delivery of direct services and the self-care intervention, which aims to improve coping, decrease STS, and increase retention of trauma professionals in the field, will ultimately enhance the quality and accessibility of evidence-based services for diverse populations of youth and caregivers impacted by trauma in NJ as well as other parts of the nation.
