Healing Horizons: Weekly News & Research - June 20, 2024
Welcome to our weekly news show, Healing Horizons, hosted by experts Bri Twombly and Alison Cebulla. Dive into the most recent updates on trauma-informed care practices, positive and adverse childhood experiences, and the critical concept of psychological safety. Each episode is designed to keep you informed on the latest research, trends, and best practices in these essential areas. Whether you're a healthcare professional, educator, or simply passionate about mental health, our show provides valuable insights and practical advice. Stay tuned for in-depth discussions and expert interviews that will enhance your understanding and application of trauma-informed care and psychological safety.
Here are the news stories and research we featured:
USA Sex & Porn Addiction Trauma-Informed Drug Rehab Treatment Program Launched
Utah Trauma and Addiction Centers
The newly launched treatments offer multiple levels of care, including inpatient residential programs, outpatient and intensive outpatient programs, partial hospitalization, and sober living support.
With a recognition of the ways in which addiction can often arise from trauma and extend across multiple areas of life, the highly trained staff at Utah Trauma & Addiction Centers also provide care for mental health conditions and eating disorders, as well as pornography addiction and substance use.
Recovery treatment programs at Utah Trauma & Addictions Centers are constructed around the idea of addressing and resolving the roots of an addiction.
Pan-Dorset Reducing Reoffending Strategy 2024 to 2027 - Dorset Council
The Pan-Dorset Reducing Reoffending Strategy is a comprehensive and collaborative effort aimed at reducing reoffending rates among adult and young offenders in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) and Dorset Council areas.
Addressing the fundamental reasons behind criminal behaviour and reoffending, whether linked to substance misuse, mental health issues, adverse childhood experiences, homelessness, or other factors within both the youth and adult demographic, is essential to addressing community safety priorities.
Roswell (Atlanta suburb)
The need for school-based trauma-informed care that addresses grief, addiction, and suicide prevention has grown tenfold amid the coronavirus and opioid epidemics.
Despite having some of the best available resources in affluent and connected communities, students are struggling to access enough mental health help.
Provided school based mental health therapy for no cost by contracting with a non-profit, but there is still a waiting list
Helping students to develop coping skills
Nashville's new juvenile justice campus empowers young people (tennessean.com)
provide services instead of incarceration and to design spaces that heal instead of retraumatize
the building is modeled after a living room and kitchen instead of the colorless, brick boxes that characterize most institutional spaces.
For interventions that might happen later in life, we’re building a Respite and Assessment Center. This space will provide everything from therapeutic care to social services to simple shelter for momentarily unhoused youth.
Pre-trial housing that resembles dorm rooms, with natural light and the ability to make the space adaptable to each youth
Trials, June 2024
The Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) is an evaluated trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral group intervention, which has proven to be effective in reducing symptoms of PTSD, depression, and anxiety for traumatized children in group settings.
We aim to evaluate the intervention CBITS for children and adolescents being cared for in German child welfare programs and to systematically implement the intervention into routine care.
90 children and adolescents ages 8-16
Study is currently ongoing with a completion date of 1/2025
Development of prosociality and the effects of adversity | Nature Reviews Psychology
Nature Reviews Psychology, June 2024
Researchers provide critical insights into how humans become prosocial from a developmental-relational perspective by discussing central factors underlying the development of prosociality in children, summarizing research on the effects of adversity on prosocial development, including the effects of exposure to traumatic life events and everyday hurts and stressors, as well as protective factors that help children to find, remain on, or return to a prosocial path, and then discussing interventions to nurture prosociality from an early age in every individual, emphasizing the role of practices of care to create positive change at community levels
Forman Journal of Social Sciences, June 2024
The present study aimed to examine the relationship between childhood traumas, self-regulatory efficacy, and mental health in young offenders. It was hypothesized that childhood traumas would positively be correlated with psychological distress and negatively correlated with psychological well-being.
150 offenders (Mage=21, SD=1.88) was drawn from two District Jails in two cities of Punjab province, Pakistan
Results revealed:
that childhood traumas were positively correlated with psychological distress and negatively with psychological wellbeing
self-regulatory efficacy was positively correlated with psychological wellbeing and negatively with psychological distress
the relationship between physical abuse and psychological wellbeing was moderated by self-regulatory efficacy
Contemporary Pediatrics
In a nationally-representative survey that featured 1016 parents and caregivers of public school children in grades K-12, Action for Healthy Kids and the CDC Foundation found that almost 80% of parents believe schools should have an employed mental health professional at their child's school
asked parents and caregivers about what worries them most regarding the health of their child in a 48-question online survey that was fielded in December of 2023.
The goal of the survey was to better understand parent's perceptions of safe school environments and determine how the school can play a role in providing mental health support
Survey participants feel school staffs can play a large role in the safety and health of their child, as the majority reported a safe and supportive school environment was associated with transparent communications, engaged school counselors and social workers, emotional skills, and physical safety.
Among high school parents surveyed, 69% said they are worried about their child struggling with mental health, as did 64% of parents of middle school children, and 63% of elementary school children.
Nature Human Behavior, June 2024
12,668 individuals—42.5% Black and 42.1% white)
shows that individuals exposed to ACEs are at increased risk of developing mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders. In part, the substance use disorder risk is related to the use of alcohol or drugs to self-medicate mood and anxiety disorders.
found that people with these mental health conditions reported experiencing more ACEs and lacking protective factors, such as close family connections, that can mitigate their harms.
interventions focusing on coping skills and emotional resilience may help reduce the risk of future mental health issues in children exposed to ACEs.
Psychology Research and Behavior Management, June 2024
University of Alberta
A systematic search of five databases was conducted and peer-reviewed clinical studies with adult participants, assessing intervention effects on dissociative symptoms, were included. Results were thematically analyzed and summarized. Sixty-nine studies were identified. Pathological dissociation is a complex phenomenon involving brain and body systems designed for perceiving and responding to severe threats, requiring an individualized approach
Trauma-related dissociation is a complex, transdiagnostic phenomenon involving brain and body systems designed for perceiving and responding to severe threats, including the primal isolation anguish of being alone and helpless. For humans, this is intertwined with attachment, the primary method we evolved for maintaining safety, especially during developmental years. Chronic or recurrent dissociative symptoms are associated with severe and often repeated inescapable threat, often in the form of attachment or interpersonal trauma. Therefore, we propose that relational safety and attunement, termed Securefulness, be prioritized in treatment, regardless of modality
A literature is emerging regarding potentially evidence-based treatments to help those impacted by recurrent dissociative symptoms. When contextualized within a neurobiological and evolutionary perspective, these treatments can be understood as facilitating an internal and/or relational sense of safety, resulting in symptom reduction. Further studies are needed to explore effective treatments for dissociative symptoms.
Frontiers in Eduction, June 2024
Secondary traumatic stress can contribute to high emotional labor
Schools should have strategies for reducing STS
Schools need mental health professionals to support students and remove some of the emotional labor from teachers
Maternal and Child Health Journal, June 2024
This qualitative study explored experiences of 15 women in New York City who suffered physical, emotional, and socioeconomic consequences of severe maternal morbidity (life threatening events during or after childbirth such as blood clots, stroke or kidney failure)
Three themes were generated from data analysis: ‘Caring for my body’ defined by challenges during physical recuperation, ‘caring for my emotions’ which highlighted navigation of mental health recovery, and ‘caring for others’ defined by care work of infants and other children.
Most participants identified as Black, Latinx and/or people of color, and reported the immense impacts of severe maternal morbidity across aspects of their lives while receiving limited access to resources and insufficient support from family and/or healthcare providers in addressing postpartum challenges.
importance of developing a comprehensive trauma-informed approaches to postpartum care as a means of addressing Severe maternal morbidity
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, June 2024
The current study employed a meta-analysis method to explore the relationship between childhood trauma and cyberbullying among students in mainland China
This study included 26 articles, encompassing a total of 29,389 subjects
The findings revealed a moderate positive correlation between childhood trauma and cyberbullying
girls who experienced childhood trauma are more likely than boys to perpetrate cyberbullying
The most pronounced effect on the relationship was observed within the young adults, followed by the adolescents
Almost half of managers admit to unconscious bias towards teams: report | HRD Australia (hcamag.com)
Employers across Australia are planning to invest a total of $27.8 billion in strategies dedicated to mental health, diversity, and inclusion as they admit to an "empathy gap" in their organisations.
The major investment comes as a quarter of managers polled in the survey believe there is an "empathy gap" within their workforce. This means workplace challenges aren't handled with the level of care necessary for all employees, according to the report.
In fact, 39% of employees with a disability and 42% of employees who identify as neurodivergent revealed they have withheld information about their personal situation due to fears or being received poorly by their teams.
"By leading with empathy and inclusion, managers can create an emotionally intelligent and safe space for all employees, no matter their gender, generation, cultural background, or experiences of disability or neurodiversity," Mitchell said in a statement. "Only by doing so will they reap the benefits of the new workforce including increased productivity, creativity, improved decision-making, and much more."
"As well as creating a workplace that is diverse, employers need to focus on developing a culture whereby employees feel psychologically safe and that they can bring their best selves to work," Mitchell said.
