For Release: May 19, 2010
Contact:
David Corriveau, Media Relations Officer, Dartmouth Medical School, at David.A.Corriveau@Dartmouth.edu or 603-653-0771; or
or Stanley D. Rosenberg, director, Dartmouth Trauma Interventions Research Center, Stanley.d.rosenberg@dartmouth.edu or 603-653-0740
DMS to host youth trauma workshop
Stanley D. Rosenberg, Ph.D.
Hanover, N.H.—Professionals from New Hampshire's legal, medical, and social-service communities will gather at Dartmouth College on June 17 to discuss ways to coordinate care for children experiencing abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and other traumas.
Dartmouth Medical School (DMS) will play host to the inaugural workshop of the New Hampshire Bridge Project from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., at Filene Auditorium in the College's Moore Hall, where reporters are welcome to cover the event.
Under a three-year federal grant for the project, the Dartmouth Trauma Interventions Research Center (DTIRC) aims to help Granite-State agencies train both their management and front-line workers to more effectively serve young clients with emotional and behavioral problems resulting from trauma.
"The goal of the project is to improve treatments, outcomes, and coordination between systems of care for those traumatized youth who may, at various points in their lives, become involved with the New Hampshire family courts, the Department of Juvenile Justice, and the Division for Children, Youth, and Families," says Stanley D. Rosenberg, Ph.D., director of the research center. "As part of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), we are fortunate to be able to draw on the expertise of the leading child-trauma experts in the country, and make the latest and best-supported treatment technologies available to people in New Hampshire."
Rosenberg, a professor of psychiatry and of community and family medicine at DMS, expects the workshop to attract more than 200 family court representatives, child protection and juvenile-justice personnel, treatment providers, administrators, representatives of the legal system, and child- and consumer-advocates. Presenters will include Judge Michael Howard, chief magistrate of the Stark County Family Court in Ohio; Charles Wilson, an expert on trauma-informed child protective services and Director of the Chadwick Center NCTSN site in San Diego; and Monique Marrow, deputy director of treatment and rehabilitation for the Ohio Department of Youth Services.
Since 2005, with grants both from the NCTSN and from the New Hampshire Endowment for Health, the Dartmouth research center has worked to enhance community-based treatment of children and youth with posttraumatic disorders. The center established a statewide video-conferencing network to train more than 300 community-based clinicians in evidence-based child-trauma treatment. More than 2,800 adolescents in New Hampshire have been assessed for trauma exposure, PTSD, and related disorders using a web-based screening battery, also developed for the research center's initiatives to identify youth in need of trauma treatment.
Rosenberg cited the finding that authorities substantiate about one million cases of child abuse and neglect in the United States each year. He added that "it is likely that the actual rates of abuse and neglect are much higher. Abuse and neglect can affect physical, social, cognitive and emotional development, and even lead to a decrease in IQ. As young abuse and neglect victims grow older, they are at increased risk for school problems and risk-taking behaviors such as substance abuse or delinquency."
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