As we gear up for our Franklin County Becoming Trauma Informed Program in our schools that we introduced last week we want to spend the next couple blogs talking a little bit about this exciting endeavor.

As part of this program we strive to provide the best and most effective evidence-based practices. We have developed our curriculum for this program using resources from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) and Heather Forbes Trauma-Informed Schools programs. We are excited to announce that we will also be providing one of two evidence-based groups to students in the schools that we work with: Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) and Bounce Back which is an adaptation of CBITS for younger children.

CBITS is a group program created to help reduce symptoms, such as depression and behavior problems, caused by traumatic events in children from 5^th to 12^th grade. It also teaches skills to increase resiliency through psychoeducation, relaxation, social problem solving, cognitive restructuring and exposure. This program provides parent and teacher education sessions.

Bounce Back is an adaptation of the CBITS program for children kindergarten through 5^th grade. This program consists of 10 group sessions, parent sessions to help parents support children by using skills at home, and individual session where children have the opportunity to develop a personal trauma narrative in a safe place.

We are excited to be providing these two programs in our local schools. Both the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration endorse these programs and recommend their use in the school setting with children. 

If you would like more information about these programs you can visit: https://cbitsprogram.org/ and https://bouncebackprogram.org/

We will see you in school!