The New York Child and Adolescent Maltreatment Prevention Network (NY CHAMP Network) - The Child and Adolescent Maltreatment Prevention (CHAMP) Network is a partnership between the NYU Silver School of Social Work, the NCTSN Center for Child Welfare Practice Innovation (CCWPI), the NYC Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), and three child welfare prevention agencies, which will expand delivery of trauma-informed care, including Trauma Systems Therapy (TST), to prevent and address the consequences of child maltreatment. The CHAMP Network builds on an existing partnership between the CCWPI, ACS, and child welfare prevention services providers which serve children and families across all five boroughs of New York City, in which approximately 20,000 children were referred to prevention services in 2022. Among this diverse group of vulnerable children, over 90% were children of color. Children and families receiving child welfare prevention services in NYC and beyond are highly likely to experience adverse outcomes related to trauma and maltreatment and are at extremely high risk of future maltreatment. Considering the prevalence of trauma among consumers of prevention services, providers operate as a frontline safety net for traumatized children at risk of maltreatment. However, despite the trauma-related mental health needs in this population, only 43% of NYC families in prevention reported that anyone in their family received a referral to mental health services. Prevention services providers need both trauma-informed, evidenced-based processes and trauma-focused interventions to appropriately meet the needs of this extremely vulnerable population. To address these challenges, five goals define the scope of the CHAMP Network: 1) To improve the safety and mental health of children and families in the five boroughs of NYC determined to be at high risk for maltreatment by ACS, including training 50 CHAMP Network providers in TST and delivering TST intervention to 540 families each year. 2) To closely coordinate screening, assessment, interventions, and services between ACS and TST teams to improve care of children and families in child welfare prevention, including training 50 ACS staff in trauma-informed care using TST and Never Look Away (NLA; an engaging NCTSN curriculum on trauma-informed care based on an animated video series). 3) To improve the competence and knowledge of providers about the impact of complex trauma on youth development, including training providers across the prevention services continuum using NLA and The Rhythm is My Blanket (RMB; an NCTSN curriculum to address racial disparities and biases in clinical care) and establishing a training institute at the Silver School of Social Work to train future child welfare providers in trauma-informed care. 4) To implement a community engagement and outreach strategy to increase awareness among community providers and families of the needs of traumatized children, including training new trainers in NLA and RMB at each partnering agency. 5) To improve the CHAMP Network’s processes for serving children and families in child welfare prevention programs in order to establish the network’s value as a national model, including conducting focus groups with participants, providers, and community leaders to articulate recommendations for dissemination of this approach. Through training and the delivery of TST, NLA, and RMB, the CHAMP Network will serve 810 unduplicated individuals in year 1 and 980 in each subsequent year of the project.
