Friday, May 13, 2005

Agencies Often Overlook Need To Assess Trauma in Children May 6 Psychiatric News story - "The mental health needs of children who have experienced trauma and are in the child welfare system require consistent, ongoing attention of all the agencies involved. A number of public agencies charged with serving youth who have experienced trauma fail to gather information systematically about those traumatic experiences, including factors that trigger responses related to past trauma. An additional shortcoming appears to be a failure to assess children consistently for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a report released in March by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. The report, titled 'Helping Children in the Child Welfare System Heal From Trauma: A Systems Integration Approach,' found that children who have been removed from their homes due to abuse and neglect and placed in the public system 'have an extremely high risk for mental health problems, especially traumatic stress.' " See also the full report (41 pages, Adobe Acrobat format), as well as other resources at the web site of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.