Program Language: Hebrew

TF-CBT for Youth who have Experienced Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation (TF-CBT for T/CSE) is an advanced training for the use of Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) with youth who have experienced trafficking and/or commercial sexual exploitation and may have also experienced other traumas. This training outlines T/CSE-specific applications of TF-CBT PRACTICE components:

• T/CSE-specific psychoeducation
• Processing T/CSE-specific maladaptive cognitions in trauma narration
• T/CSE-related safety concerns including risk of leaving placement [“running away”] and T/CSE revictimization
• Strategies for addressing common T/CSE clinical challenges such as engagement and retention difficulties and significant emotional and behavioral dysregulation.

There is an emphasis on personal safety and supporting caregiver-youth relationships which are often particular concerns with T/CSE clients. TF-CBT for T/CSE can be used in an array of settings including clinics, homes, residential facilities, and in-patient units. This includes utilization with youth with absent or unavailable caregivers, those in foster care placements, and group homes, consistent with the many settings and circumstances in which youth who experience T/CSE are served.

The Community Resiliency Model (CRM)® is a set of six biologically based wellness skills used for self-care that can be practiced by participants to stabilize emotions, ideally resulting in more adaptive thinking when facing emotional and physical distress. CRM's key aim is to inform individuals about the biological responses associated with trauma, stress, and resilience and to learn skills that aid in resetting and stabilizing the nervous system. CRM's six core skills -- Tracking, Resourcing, Grounding, Gesturing, Help Now!, and Shift and Stay -- can be taught through CRM Workshops or shared informally by “CRM Teachers” and “CRM Guides'' who have received training in its strategies. People trained may be professionals or natural leaders within communities, including teachers, ministers, healthcare workers, therapists, first responders, and lay persons. The skills are adaptable across different cultural and religious contexts, enhancing CRM’s accessibility and inclusiveness.

While CRM can be used with many different target populations, this entry is focused only on its use with professionals who work in trauma-exposed organizations or situations and experience secondary traumatic stress. The CEBC Scientific Rating is based on research articles with studies evaluating only this use.

Research Units on Behavioral Intervention Parent Training (RUBI-PT) program consists of 11 sessions that are delivered from therapist to caregiver (1-on-1) in an outpatient setting. RUBI-PT teaches caregivers a range of skills, based on principles of applied behavior analysis, that are designed to support the building of a behavioral strategy toolbox. RUBI-PT emphasizes:

• Tailoring the intervention to the child
• Identifying behavioral function instead of topography to inform behavioral strategy choice
• Decreasing challenging behaviors as well as promoting core adaptive skills
• Using positive behavioral supports, such as antecedent management, reinforcement, and functional communication strategies as the means to address challenging behaviors

Typically, a session begins with a homework review from the previous week, followed by didactic instruction. RUBI-PT uses a behavioral skills-training approach, including direct instruction, modeling, role-play, video vignettes, and practice with feedback in order to train caregivers in the various RUBI-PT skills. These tools are helpful in reinforcing a new concept and identifying whether the parents understand the concepts. Every session ends with creation of a homework assignment where caregivers track their implementation of targeted strategies during the week.

The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM) Small Group Model for Adults is an approach designed to heal psychological trauma, relieve stress, reduce symptoms of chronic illness, and increase resilience. Working in small groups of 8–10 people, facilitators teach a variety of self-care techniques drawn from the world’s healing traditions as well as modern medicine to help participants learn to move through emotions and experience their own capacity for self-healing. Trained facilitators guide the experience, helping participants discover their own answers.

The Center for Mind–Body Medicine (CMBM) Small Group Model for Children and Adolescents is an approach for healing psychological trauma, relieving stress, reducing symptoms of chronic illness, and increasing resilience. Working in small groups of 8–10 children, facilitators teach a variety of techniques drawn from the world’s healing traditions as well as modern medicine, to help participants learn to move through emotions and experience their own capacity for self-healing. Trained facilitators guide the experience, helping participants discover their own answers.

The CMBM Small Group Model for Children and Adolescents helps young people understand how their mind and bodies operate under stress and in the aftermath of trauma. This knowledge is then used to teach self-regulation and reduce shame around negative coping adaptations. The CMBM also offers parallel group learning processes and individual coaching for parents whose children are targeted by their approach.

ABFT is an attachment-based, trauma-informed, emotion-focused intervention for youth with suicide, depression anxiety, and/or trauma. Treatment strengthens secure parent-child relationships which can reduce family conflict and buffer against stress. The model is structured yet flexible, requiring therapists to be focused as well as emotionally attuned. Treatment is constructed around five tasks:

• The Relational Reframe task helps families focus on relationship repair as the initial goal of therapy.
• The Adolescent Alliance task helps link current distress to attachment ruptures and prepares the adolescent to talk about this with caregivers.
• The Parent Alliance task focuses on reducing caregiver distress, increasing empathy, and improving parenting skills.
• The Attachment Task brings the family members back together to discuss these attachment ruptures. This helps families resolve problems and practice new interpersonal and affect regulation skills.
• As trust reemerges, therapy focuses on Promoting Autonomy task, wherein caregivers help promote adolescent autonomy and competency outside the home.

ABFT is generally delivered in weekly sessions for 12-16 weeks.

CPS is a treatment model that is designed to help parents/caregivers and children learn to collaboratively and proactively solve the problems that contribute to the children’s challenging behaviors, with the goal of improving family communication, cohesion, and relationships. It is made up of four modules that teach parents: (a) to identify lagging skills and unsolved problems that contribute to oppositional episodes; (b) to prioritize which unsolved problems to focus on first; (c) about the Plans framework—the three potential responses to solving problems: Plan A (solving a problem unilaterally, by imposing the adult will), Plan B (solving a problem collaboratively and proactively), and Plan C (setting aside the problem for now); and (d) how to implement Plan B with their child by gathering information from the child to get a clear understanding of their concern or perspective, defining the adult concern on the same unsolved problem, and finally having the child and adult brainstorm solutions to arrive at a plan of action that is both realistic and mutually satisfactory. The clinician actively guides the initial problem-solving process, however, the goal of treatment is to help the child and parents become independent in solving problems together. In general, parent(s) and child are in attendance at all of the sessions, although there are times when a clinician may feel that it would be beneficial to discuss certain issues with the child or parent(s) individually.

PC is a psychotherapy procedure for resolving trauma or loss memories via memory reconsolidation. Briefly, it entails guiding the client to imagine a movie of the distressing memory, from beginning to end, while the therapist counts aloud first from 1-10, then 1-20, then 1-30, etc., to a maximum of 100. As the distress level goes down, the movies get shorter. This continues until no memory-related distress remains. PC can be done as a stand-alone treatment or within the context of a comprehensive phase model of trauma-informed treatment.

The COSP program is a manualized, video-based program divided into eight chapters during which trained facilitators reflect with caregivers about how to promote secure attachment. The program is designed to be delivered in groups but can also be delivered to individual caregivers or couples. The facilitator pauses the video at designated moments and asks reflective questions from the manual to participants. Key concepts are presented with visuals compiled into a caregiver workbook; together the videos, the handouts/workbook, and the facilitator’s presence and curiosity assist caregivers to explore their strengths and struggles in meeting their children’s attachment needs.

EMDR therapy is an 8-phase psychotherapy treatment that was originally designed to alleviate the symptoms of trauma. During the EMDR trauma processing phases, guided by standardized procedures, the client attends to emotionally disturbing material in brief sequential doses that include the client’s beliefs, emotions, and body sensations associated with the traumatic event while simultaneously focusing on an external stimulus. Therapist directed bilateral eye movements are the most commonly used external stimulus, but a variety of other stimuli including hand-tapping and audio bilateral stimulation are often used. EMDR is also highlighted on the CEBC website in the Trauma Treatment – Client-Level Interventions (Child & Adolescent) topic area, click here to go to that entry.