Benchmarks is thrilled to announce the addition of two new counties to our Standardized Assessment Protocol (SAP) project—Burke and Rutherford Counties! Burke and Rutherford began partnering with us this summer. The two counties will work together, with Partners Behavioral Health Management and Benchmarks, to prioritize children in their foster care system who need to receive trauma-informed clinical assessments. In addition to providing their foster care system with these assessments, the counties will also receive training on trauma and helping staff respond to secondary traumatic stress.
While we are still amid training and preparing for this new venture, we plan to start screening foster children in Burke and Rutherford for trauma in early 2021. Children above age 4 who are positive for trauma will have access to the Trauma Informed Comprehensive Clinical Assessment (TiCCA), leading to an appropriate and individualized treatment plan, all in a timely manner.
Warren Sparrow, Rutherford County’s Program Administrator, says “It has become increasingly evident in the mental health field that trauma is a root cause of maladaptive behaviors in children and causal factors in symptoms of severe mental illnesses in adults. It just makes sense, in the child protective services arena, to recognize the effects of trauma on children, to properly diagnose the effects of this trauma, and then properly treat the child, now. This practice, using Benchmarks, is an act of prevention so children may grow up to be healthy, productive adults and parents themselves”.
It is no secret that 2020 has been a year full of obstacles, particularly when you add in a new project to the mix. Benchmarks and their partnering counties have taken many steps to ensure the safety of all involved throughout the project, including lifting trainings and meetings completely virtually. This has made our partnership completely unique in that contact with DSS staff has been completely virutal. Burke and Rutherford counties have proven that they are up to the challenge as we work on developing lasting relationships, if only through the lens of Zoom. We are looking forward to this new expansion and are confident that Burke and Rutherford counties will soar!
-Written by Kelsey Catherwood, SAP Implementation Coordinator
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