Trauma-Interventions for Children and Youth in Foster Care with Complex Mental, Behavioral, and Physical Health Needs

Objectives: The program’s objectives are to develop projects that use and build upon the evidence of effectiveness in existing trauma-informed interventions.

Projects should:

• Deeply understand the developmental, mental, and behavioral health needs of children who have experienced trauma and use this knowledge and experience to build innovative, responsive methods for helping children to meet these challenges.
• Lead to improved outcomes for children in foster care, which may include:
• Improvements in children’s assessments.
• Decreases in mental health crises needing to involve emergency care.
• Decreases in behavioral issues associated with an increase in selfregulation skills or better management of sensory or other issues.
• An increase in trauma-informed services available in the community.
• Carry out continuous quality improvement activities and outcomes or impact evaluations to build knowledge and evidence about ways to help children in foster care with complex needs who have experienced trauma.
• Provide others who want to help children with replicable models that show positive results.

Focus Areas:

Evidence-Based Clinical Services: These services help to meet children’s mental, behavioral, and physical health needs. Examples include:

• Assessment and diagnosis of mental health conditions.
• Individual, group, and family therapy, including cognitive behavior therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and play therapy.
• Occupational therapy to help children with sensory issues.
• Emergency mental health services for children in crisis.

Foster Parent Training and Curricula: These services help foster and potential adoptive families to understand the needs of children who have experienced trauma. Examples include:

• The changes in children’s bodies, brains, behaviors, and belief systems that come with experiencing trauma.
• The need to build nurturing, trusting relationships with safe boundaries with trusted adults.
• The need to address the whole child and their unique needs.
• The need to correct behavior by focusing on the behavior, not the child.

Volunteer Support Services for Foster Parents: These services provide direct support for foster parents and caregivers. Examples include:

• Respite care to give foster parents time to meet their own needs and engage in self-care.
• Matching foster parents with mentors or support groups with experience caring for children with complex needs.
• Organizing volunteers to help with transportation for children to appointments, meals for the family, or collecting donations of clothing, toys, and other supplies.
• Resilience-building programs that help foster parents manage the challenges they face.

Positive Biological and Birth Family Engagement: These services help support biological family reunification, where possible. Examples include:

• Building supportive relationships between the child, foster family, and biological family.
• Connecting biological families to concrete, economic, and other available supports within the community.
• Managing regular communication. These might include phone calls, emails, and visits. These can also include coordinating family therapy or other supports, case planning and decision making, and co-parenting.

Enrichment Activities for Children: These services provide opportunities for creative expression and building social skills. Examples include:

• Art or music therapy to allow children to express themselves. This can help them to reduce stress and process their emotions and experiences in a safe, supportive environment.
• Outdoor activities like hiking, gardening, and nature walks. These help children connect with nature and find a sense of peace and calm.
• Sports and exercise to help children release energy, relieve stress, and build self-confidence.
• Mindfulness practices like meditation, breathing exercises, and yoga to develop self-awareness and self-regulation skills.

Trauma-informed Systems Work: This work coordinates community services to prevent, identify, and address trauma. Examples include:

• Building networks of local child-serving systems. These include healthcare, education, social services, juvenile justice, and community organizations. Collaborations develop systems that are more responsive, compassionate, and effective. – Specific focus areas might include standardized screening and assessments, measurement-driven case planning, treatment referral processes, changes to data systems, and more.
• Training to better understand, recognize, and intervene with the impacts of trauma.

• Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
• Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
• Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
• Others (see text field entitled "Additional Eligibility Criteria" for clarification)

Estimated Total Program Funding: