Safe Start Aurora

The Safe Start Promising Approaches Project will develop and support practice enhancements and innovations to prevent and reduce the impact of children's exposure to violence in their homes and communities. The project will help communities implement collaborative and evidence-based practices across the services continuum for children and their families. Exposure to violence includes being a victim of violence or a witness to violence, and encompasses abuse, neglect or child maltreatment, domestic violence, and community violence.
This program is authorized by Sections 261 and 262 of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, as amended (42 USC 5665-5666).The 10 pilot sites will test various evidence-based enhancements and practice innovations such as AF-CBT, TF-CBT, Strengthening Families Program, Coping Resources and other interventions in community-based settings such as DV shelters, libraries, Head Start, community mental health clinics and afterschool clubs. NCA/NCF

OJJDP has a specific mission to develop and disseminate knowledge about what works to prevent juvenile delinquency and violence and improve the effectiveness of the juvenile justice system. The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, 42 U.S.C. § 5601 et seq authorizes the Administrator of OJJDP to conduct research or evaluations and undertake statistical analyses on a wide range of juvenile justice matters. OJJDP also provides funding to states and localities to carry out research, evaluation, and statistical analyses.

The Aurora site is run by a partnership of Aurora Mental Health Center (AuMHC), The Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect (Kempe) and Aurora Public Schools (APS). Aurora proposes a strategic enhancement to the evidence-based Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT).

TF-CBT is a short-term, evidence-based treatment for children who have experienced trauma (e.g., child abuse, domestic violence, traumatic grief, immigration trauma, and other traumatic events) and their non-offending caregivers. TF-CBT is the most rigorously tested treatment for trauma-related symptoms among children and their caregivers and is supported by seven completed randomized clinical trials (RCTs). TF-CBT is effective with a wide age range of youth, from preschool children to adolescents, including those who have been multiply traumatized and is typically delivered in 12-16 sessions. TF-CBT is a components-based treatment model that allows for considerable flexibility to enable the clinician to best address the needs of the child and families. TF-CBT was developed to decrease posttraumatic stress symptoms and depression, through a combination of cognitive-behavioral skill building and gradual exposure techniques. TF-CBT has been used with diverse families and has well-developed cultural modifications for Latino Families that address spirituality, familismo, gender roles, personalismo, respect, simpatia, fatalism, and folk beliefs. These cultural concepts are incorporated throughout treatment to enhance family engagement and trust. Caregivers and children engage in parallel skill building and participate together throughout treatment, given that caregiver involvement is crucial for maximizing treatment effects

The enhancement component, A Family Focused Emotion Communication Training (AFFECT), was designed by clinical researchers on the Aurora team. It is add-on module for TF-CBT intended to improve caregivers emotion-communication skills for talking with children about traumatic events or other emotionally arousing topics. AFFECT is grounded in research which shows the impact of parental support on children's mental health outcomes. AFFECT was developed by Drs. Shipman and Fitzgerald based on (1) clinical/developmental research in children's emotional development (conducted by Drs. Shipman and Fitzgerald and others), (2) feedback from clinicians during Kempe-led National TF-CBT trainings that indicate challenges facilitating parent-child discussion of trauma-related events, and (3) focus groups conducted at AuMHC with Latino families and therapists that highlighted discussion of trauma-related events as a particular challenge/barrier to treatment engagement.

CA/NCF

This program furthers the Department's mission by providing grants and cooperative agreements for research and evaluation activities to organizations that OJJDP designates.

The Safe Start Promising Approaches project supports the development and study of the practice enhancements and innovations to prevent and reduce the impact of children's exposure to violence in their homes and communities. The eight continuation projects serve as the practice pilots for a multi-site national evaluation using experimental and quasi-experimental research design to test the effectiveness of new approaches to improve outcomes for children exposed to violence in real world community-based settings. The national evaluation is being conducted by RAND and supported through OJJDP research funding. The project helps communities implement collaborative and evidence-based practices across the service continuum. The Aurora Safe Start site is run by a partnership of Aurora Mental Health Center (AuMHC), The Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect (Kempe) and Aurora Public Schools (APS). Aurora proposes a strategic enhancement to the evidence-based Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). TF-CBT is a short-term, evidence-based treatment for children who have experienced trauma (e.g., child abuse, domestic violence, traumatic grief, immigration trauma, and other traumatic events) and their non-offending caregivers. TF-CBT is the most rigorously tested treatment for trauma-related symptoms among children and their caregivers and is supported by seven completed randomized clinical trials (RCTs). TF-CBT is effective with a wide age range of youth, from preschool children to adolescents, including those who have been multiply traumatized and is typically delivered in 12-16 sessions. TF-CBT is a components-based treatment model that allows for considerable flexibility to enable the clinician to best address the needs of the child and families. TF-CBT was developed to decrease posttraumatic stress symptoms and depression, through a combination of cognitive-behavioral skill building and gradual exposure techniques. TF-CBT has been used with diverse families and has well-developed cultural modifications for Latino Families that address spirituality, familismo, gender roles, personalismo, respect, simpatia, fatalism, and folk beliefs. These cultural concepts are incorporated throughout treatment to enhance family engagement and trust. Caregivers and children engage in parallel skill building and participate together throughout treatment, given that caregiver involvement is crucial for maximizing treatment effects The enhancement component, A Family Focused Emotion Communication Training (AFFECT), was designed by clinical researchers on the Aurora team. It is add-on module for TF-CBT intended to improve caregivers emotion-communication skills for talking with children about traumatic events or other emotionally arousing topics. AFFECT is grounded in research which shows the impact of parental support on children's mental health outcomes. AFFECT was developed by Drs. Shipman and Fitzgerald based on (1) clinical/developmental research in children's emotional development (conducted by Drs. Shipman and Fitzgerald and others), (2) feedback from clinicians during Kempe-led National TF-CBT trainings that indicate challenges facilitating parent-child discussion of trauma-related events, and (3) focus groups conducted at AuMHC with Latino families and therapists that highlighted discussion of trauma-related events as a particular challenge/barrier to treatment engagement.
NCA/NCF