The Administration for Children and Families, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Administration for Community Living, the Offices of the Assistant Secretary for Health, and the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have worked together to develop this Guide to Trauma-Informed Human Services. The guide provides an introduction to the topic of trauma, discusses why understanding and addressing trauma is important for human services programs, and a offers a “road map” to find relevant resources.

Some aspects of child development are often misconstrued. This brief from the Harvard Center on the Developing Child examines these aspects and clarifies their meaning and importance. For example, even infants are adversely affected when significant stresses occur in their family environment.

Adverse experiences in childhood can produce physiological changes in the brain, which can ultimately negatively affect a child’s long-term decision-making skills and ability to regulate emotions. The Annie E. Casey Foundation hosted a webinar that presented practical tools and solutions for integrating trauma-responsive practices into youth programs.

This report is the fourth and final in a series on Self-Regulation and Toxic Stress; it is targeted specifically towards program administrators and practitioners. This report reviews the key concepts for understanding self-regulation, including the relationship between stress and self-regulation. Additionally, it summarizes principal findings from a comprehensive review of self-regulation interventions. Finally and most importantly, it addresses how current theory and knowledge of self-regulation may apply to programs and practitioners serving children and youth in different developmental groups from birth through young adulthood.

Key conclusions from the report indicate that:

• A variety of self-regulation interventions result in meaningful positive effects on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral self-regulation, as well as broader outcomes across development in functional domains like mental health and academic achievement.
• Many promising intervention approaches exist for supporting self-regulation development that could be incorporated into existing ACF programs.
• Care is needed in selecting interventions that may be a good “fit” for relevant populations and settings.
• Given the profound impacts that self-regulation can have across areas of functioning into adulthood, a self-regulation framework to support the well-being of children and families living in adversity may have great value. (Author abstract)

The Children’s Institute, Inc. (CII), located in Los Angeles, California, combines clinical mental health and other supports to serve children and families affected by trauma. This report from MDRC presents findings from an evaluation of CII’s service model and delivery of evidence-based practices.

Recent studies have begun to show that inhibited brain development and functioning in children raised in poverty may be an important explanatory factor behind the relationship often seen between growing up in poverty and lower educational attainment. This brief from the Institute for Research on Poverty summarizes an April 2016 workshop, hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where researchers in the area of poverty and developmental neuroscience discussed the current status of the research and how it can be appropriately and effectively used to inform public policy.

This webinar, hosted by the Institute for Research on Poverty, focused on how individual- and community-level deprivation and chronic, unmitigated stress affects health in different stages of the life course; the impact of perceived discrimination among young adult expectant parents; and the effects of adverse childhood experiences on long-term health outcomes. The webinar was held on June 8, 2016 from 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET.

Early childhood experiences form the foundation of brain architecture and can have lasting positive or negative impacts on learning, behavior, and health. Today’s best programs and practices can help support child development, but many children are still left behind. This report from the Center on the Developing Child considers lessons learned from five decades of program evaluation research, identifies five core principles to inform policymaking and program development, and discusses the importance of investing in research and development to better the lives of America’s children. The core principles identified include building caregiver skills; matching interventions to sources of significant stress; and supporting the health of the mother and child before, during, and after pregnancy.

This May 2016 presentation to Connecticut’s Two-Generational Interagency Workgroup, which supports legislative pilot projects across the state, was provided by Alice M. Forrester, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of the Clifford Beers Clinic in New Haven, CT. She discussed the importance of understanding trauma and its effects on behavior and development when implementing two-generation approaches.