What’s New: Supporting Children Leads Trauma Systems Therapy Presentation at NCTSN All-Network Conference

From left to right: Dr. Glenn Saxe, professor at NYU's Langone Health Center, Director of Trauma Systems Therapy Training Center; Rosemary Creeden, FrontLine Service Associate Director of Trauma Services; Dr. Nora McNamara, The Centers for Family and Children Psychiatrist; Kevin Torigoe, FrontLine Defending Childhood Central Intake & Assessment Program Manager; and Nicky Miller, FrontLine Supporting Children -TST Program Manager.

FrontLine Service’s Supporting Children – Trauma Systems Therapy (TST) program staff were honored to present their work at the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) Conference this May alongside Dr. Glenn Saxe, professor at NYU's Langone Health Center, Director of Trauma Systems Therapy Training Center and developer of the evidence-based treatment model, Trauma Systems Therapy. Dr. Saxe invited FrontLine to co-present at NCTSN due to the agency’s unique and groundbreaking implementation of TST. 

Trauma Systems Therapy is a transformative model of care that addresses a traumatized child’s emotional dysregulation and the role their social environment, such as their family, school, peer group, or neighborhood, plays in either helping to cope or in triggering and/or perpetuating these survival states. These factors drive their traumatic stress reactions since they are contextual reminders of traumatic events. TST targets psychological trauma, identifies trauma triggers, and helps families remove those triggers and build the child’s and family’s coping skills.

FrontLine’s Supporting Children – TST program is the first time that TST has been implemented in the state of Ohio. And it is the first TST program in the nation to work with FrontLine’s specific population of focus – children ages 5-17 who have lost a parent/guardian to opioid overdose or who have been separated from their parent/guardian due to substance use. In addition, the Supporting Children Project Director, FrontLine’s own Nicky Miller, is one of only a handful of individuals in the nation certified to train other practitioners in TST.  

Dr. Saxe has worked closely with the Supporting Children program staff since the program began in 2022. He commends FrontLine’s implementation of TST through the loss and grief of the opioid crisis, and the program staff’s commitment to resiliency while working with traumatized children and their families.  

Many programs that utilize TST have encountered the issue of secondary trauma – the emotional stress one can experience when listening to the firsthand trauma of another. However, Supporting Children’s staff has continued its work without staff experiencing lasting secondary trauma. The program staff’s mental and emotional resiliency comes from consistent, high-quality clinical supervision and bi-weekly group resiliency meetings to let staff process the trauma they absorb on a day-to-day basis. 

Supporting Children-TST staff and Trauma Department leadership expressed their gratitude for such a fantastic opportunity and recognition of their program’s success. The trauma department’s leadership feels its strength comes from the agency’s decades of experience in treating trauma. 

“This is something that we have always done; that is why we are successful,” said Rosemary Creeden, Associate Director of Trauma Services. “Not many agencies know how to respond to trauma in that way, and that was something that Dr. Saxe felt was unique to us.” 

We, as FrontLiners, couldn’t be prouder of the program’s critical impacts on the lives of children and families and our colleagues’ compassion, professionalism, and dedication to the work. Congratulations to the entire team!

To learn more about Trauma Systems Therapy, follow this link: www.nctsn.org/interventions/trauma-systems-therapy. To learn more about our Supporting Children – TST program, click the button below to read our program spotlight.