CHDI Awarded Grant to Improve Trauma Screening, Develop New Trauma Intervention

CONNECTICUT - The Child Health and Development Institute (CHDI) has been awarded a $3 million federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Category II grant to support the five-year initiative Project BRIDGE (Building Recovery through Trauma-Informed Detection, Guidance, and Early Intervention). 

Project BRIDGE brings together CHDI staff, national experts, state agencies, behavioral health providers, and families to strengthen the identification and treatment of traumatic stress among children and youth by providing child-serving systems with best practices for trauma screening and developing and disseminating an evidence-informed single-session intervention for children and youth experiencing traumatic stress.

Children and youth experience trauma at high rates, yet many are not identified and do not receive services due to the limited implementation of trauma screening and varying levels of treatment availability. 

"Too many children suffer from traumatic stress alone, despite the development and dissemination of highly effective interventions to support their recovery," said Chief Program Officer Jason Lang, PhD. "Through BRIDGE, we hope to help child-serving staff better recognize youth experiencing traumatic stress and expand intervention options for youth and families, especially in settings where longer trauma treatments are not available or feasible."

Project BRIDGE will enhance child-serving professionals' ability to identify children and youth experiencing traumatic stress by updating CHDI's Trauma ScreenTIME courses, developing a new online course focused on trauma screening for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and providing in-person and virtual training on trauma screening best practices.

"Despite high rates of trauma exposure, many children experiencing traumatic stress are not identified," said Brittany Lange, DPhil, MPH, who serves as co-Project Director, "Providing training in trauma screening best practices will give child-serving professionals the skills they need to identify and support children experiencing traumatic stress and to connect these children with appropriate care."

Additionally, the project will develop an evidence-informed single-session intervention designed for children and youth experiencing traumatic stress intended for use across a range of child-serving systems—particularly where traditional, longer-term trauma-focused evidence-based treatments are not available. As part of developing this new intervention, CHDI will also create accompanying training curricula, practice manuals, implementation resources, and an online training course.

Upon development, the intervention will be disseminated through Learning Communities and a Train-the-Trainer initiative in partnership with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and other child-serving sites. CHDI is proud to be a National Child Traumatic Stress Network Category II Center (Treatment and Services Adaptation).

Learn more about Project BRIDGE

Learn more about CHDI

Media Contact: Shannon Houston, Director of Communications

View CHDI Resources for the Media