Clinical and Community Settings
Our expertise in both trauma-informed care and infant and early childhood mental health, seen through an early relational health framework, enables us to create custom training and professional development for clinical teams.
For over twenty years our parent organization, The Center for Great Expectations, has focused on creating a trauma-attuned culture and treatment model for the people we serve to address their substance use and mental health disorders. Our Trauma C.A.R.E. model identifies the components of what we have learned and provides the roadmap for other clinical settings. The early relational health framework supports the caregiver-child relationship as the foundation for socio-emotional wellbeing across the lifespan. Training provides theory and evidence-based interventions in an interactive, practice-changing format. Aware, Attuned, Aligned, CGE's unique approach to transforming cultures, is interwoven into both content and practice.
The Institute’s team has extensive experience in delivering services in the areas of substance use and mental health treatment and is highly regarded for our expertise in early relational health and family counseling. We consult in the creation of trauma-attuned environments that support individuals and families with trauma histories through therapy, education and support, with the goal of building resilient families, resilient communities, helping to mitigate the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Equally important is the integration of training about the vital role self-care plays in managing the vicarious trauma often felt by providers.
Aware, Attuned, Aligned, CGE's unique approach to transforming cultures, is interwoven into both content and practice.
We are Aware
We are aware that complex trauma and substance use are intertwined elements with roots in early adverse experiences or ACEs. A trauma-informed culture, philosophy and practice are vital to organizations and persons seeking to create sustained change for the families they serve.
We are Attuned
We are attuned to challenges facing organizations and private practitioners when adopting a trauma-informed lens. Our relationship-based approach, grounded in evidence-based strategies, provides an effective framework for serving individuals and families affected by trauma and substance use.
We are Aligned
We are aligned with a vision for treating complex trauma in adults and preventing the intergenerational transmission of trauma during gestation and in infants and young children. Our training experiences facilitate a shift to a trauma-informed lens, providing a relationship-based approach to healing from trauma and substance use.
Trauma and Resilience: The Basics (NASW Approved 2 CEs)
This course expands the definition of trauma and educates participants on the prevalence of ACEs and the impact traumatic experiences have on the physical, mental, emotional and relational health of individuals. This course will examine PTSD and complex trauma diagnoses, the effect of trauma on the brain and the body and how to build and support resiliency factors to promote healing and wellness.
Becoming Trauma Attuned: It Starts with Us (NASW Approved 2 CEs)
The knowledge of the prevalence and impact of trauma provides a new lens through which to view the people we serve and changes our response to them. This training will provide participants with the relational, self-reflective and self-care skills imperative to forming a safe helping relationship that sets the foundation for an environment of care that promotes resiliency and wellness in trauma survivors. It will also introduce the foundational skills of trauma treatment that focus on nervous system regulation.
Trauma & Addiction: The Trauma C.A.R.E. Model (NASW Approved 2 CEs)
The ACEs study established a clear correlation between adverse childhood experiences and the risk for developing a substance use disorder. This information changes how we view addiction and provides a new treatment paradigm that has the potential to improve outcomes. This webinar will explore substance use through a trauma-informed lens, critically evaluate current treatment strategies, consider how to incorporate the body into treatment and provide a framework for the integrative treatment of trauma and addiction.
Utilizing Motivational Interviewing to Grow Personal Motivation in Staff, Youth & Families (NASW Approved 3 CEs)
This training provides an overview of the key concepts in Motivational Interviewing (MI), based on the book of the same name by William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick. MI is a way of being with others that constitutes a collaboration without pushing, directing or power struggles. The focus of the collaboration is to assist the person to resolve ambivalence towards change with MI’s four processes: Engagement (listening empathetically without judgement); Focusing (helping the person identify what they want different in their lives); Evoking (asking questions to help the person explore the landscape of their feelings and perceptions around the area of change and discover clarity around what’s important and grow their self-efficacy to achieve that goal); and Planning (making individualized plans for the change journey).
Complex Trauma: When Multiple Traumas Collide
Complex trauma is the exposure to multiple traumatic events, often of an invasive, interpersonal nature. This training will provide insight into the long-term impact that these events have on the individual who experienced them. This workshop will equip clinicians with the knowledge, self-insight and skills to effectively respond to clients who suffer from complex trauma.
Through a Trauma Lens: Rethinking Addiction Treatment
Research has demonstrated that people who have experienced childhood trauma have a higher risk of developing an addiction. Eighty percent of individuals with a substance use disorder have a history of trauma. Traditional addiction treatment can re-traumatize a trauma survivor and lead to poor outcomes. This workshop explores the intersection of trauma and addiction and offers strategies on how to concurrently treat trauma and addiction in an integrated manner.
The Effect of Domestic Violence on Children
This training describes the effects of domestic violence on children’s brain development, emotion regulation and behavior. A two-generation view of domestic violence-related trauma is explored to include mother’s exposure to domestic violence during childhood, the experience of the prenate during gestation, effect on child-caregiver relationship and the child’s direct experience. Dyadic treatment interventions are offered.
Mitigating the impact of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences)
This training provides an overview of the impact of parental and community ACEs on the wellbeing of the next generation. We explore the early parent-child relationship as a foundation for wellbeing across the lifespan and provide an overview of interventions that support early relational health. The connection between trauma, neuroception and parental responsiveness is presented, with a focus on supporting parental contingency and affective synchrony.
Preventing Intergenerational Transmission of ACES: A Workshop for Doulas & Birth Educators Toward Delivery of Services to Strengthen the Parent-Child Relationship
This presentation demonstrates the impact of early adverse experiences on the parent-child system and therefore the wellbeing of children across multiple domains. We discuss the unique opportunity for doulas and childbirth educators to employ relationship-based approaches to support alignment of the developmental trajectory from gestation through the childbearing year. The impact of trauma during gestation on brain development, as well as the impact of traumatic childbirth on perinatal mental health are addressed. Interventions to support early relational health during the immediate and extended postpartum period are defined.
Neonatal Trauma, Mental Health and Early Parent-Child Relationships: The Foundation for Mental Health from Gestation Through the Lifespan
(This is a full-day training; it is also available in smaller segments to meet group’s needs.)
This training is a thorough examination of ways modern medicalized childbirth promotes perinatal mental health disorders, racial disparities in maternal and infant mortality and morbidity as well as postpartum experiences that hinder attachment and optimal child development. Elements of the first hours after birth are defined as critical in maximizing parental caregiving capacities. Essential attributes of early relational health are presented, including attachment, rupture and repair; co-creation of meaning; affective synchrony and reflective functioning. Participants become familiar with evidence-based dyadic interventions, clinical assessments and emotional capacity-building and regulatory practices for use with pregnant and parenting persons and their children.
This presentation offers a deep dive into a relationship-based approach to infant and early childhood mental health. We begin with an understanding of the body’s alarm system and the process of neuroception as central to our work with parent-child dyads who have experienced disrupted attachment, trauma and substance use.
Creating and Maintaining a Trauma Attuned Work Environment
(Recommended Audience: Supervisors and Agency Leaders)
In this session, formal and informal leaders will first learn how to promote a trauma-attuned culture, using key components of John Kotter’s organizational change model and the Nurtured Heart Approach. The second half of the training will use small-group discussion to create an implementation plan to identify key organizational areas to grow with these core tenets as guiding principles:
- Awareness of the effects of stress, strategies to manage stress
- Attunement strategies to facilitate effective staff meetings, staff-to-staff relationships and staff-to-client relationships
- Alignment of organizational policies, practices and norms to support a trauma-attuned environment
Learning the Trauma Landscape: A Four-Part Series for Clinical Teams (3 hours each session)
Any of the following courses are available either individually or grouped in a series.
1. ACEs, Trauma & Resiliency: Participants will be educated on the prevalence of ACEs and the impact it has on the physical, mental and emotional health of individuals who have experienced trauma. Training will also include information on PTSD, complex trauma, early relational trauma and risk and resiliency factors to better understand the complexity of traumatic experiences.
2. Becoming Trauma-Attuned: The knowledge of the prevalence and impact of trauma provides a new lens through which we can view the people we serve; one that changes our response to them. This training will provide participants with the relational and self-reflective skills imperative to forming a safe, helping relationship and sets the foundation necessary for an environment of care that promotes resiliency and wellness in trauma survivors.
3. Secondary Traumatic Stress & Professional Self Care: Participants will be able to identify the risks and recognize the symptoms of secondary traumatic stress. Each participant will evaluate their personal risk factors and create a professional self-care plan designed to mitigate their risk.
4. Building Core Competencies for Supervisors: Supervisors will be educated on the core competencies of providing supervision to staff at risk of secondary traumatic stress. Strategies will be identified that mitigate these risks and build individual and team resiliency.