Appendix B

Evidence-Informed Treatments for Trauma

There are many different types of evidence-based therapies for people who are experiencing symptoms of PTSD.

Below is a list of different types of treatments for adults, families, and children who have faced stressful and/or traumatic events. This list is not exhaustive, and there are many other forms of treatment available, as well.

Individual Assessment and Therapy:

  • Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is a specific type of cognitive behavioral therapy that helps patients learn how to modify and challenge unhelpful beliefs related to the trauma they have experienced.
    • Target age: 14–adulthood
  • Culturally Modified Trauma-Focused Treatment (CM-TFT) is a culturally adapted intervention based on Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
    • Target age: 4–18 years old
  • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a type of individual therapy that helps people access and process traumatic memories and other adverse life experiences to bring these to an adaptive resolution.
    • Target age: Youth–adulthood
  • Prolonged Exposure Therapy teaches individuals to gradually approach their trauma-related memories, feelings, and situations. They presumably learn that trauma-related memories and cues are not dangerous and do not need to be avoided.
    • Target age: Adults
  • Safety, Mentoring, Advocacy, Recovery, and Treatment (SMART) is a structured, phase-based approach to treatment for children who have been sexually abused and are exhibiting sexual behavior problems.
    • Target age: 3–11 years old
  • Trauma Assessment Pathway (TAP) is an assessment process that lets clinicians gain an in-depth understanding of a child, their developmental level, their traumatic experience, and the family, community, and cultural system in which the child lives.
    • Target age: 0–18 years old
  • Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) is a structured, short-term treatment model that effectively improves a range of trauma-related outcomes in 8-25 sessions with the child/adolescent and caregiver.
    • Target age: Adults, adolescents, or children
  • Trauma and Grief Component Therapy for Adolescents (TGCT-A) is a manualized group or individual treatment program for trauma-exposed or traumatically bereaved older children and adolescents that may be implemented in school, community mental health, clinic, or other service settings.
    • Target age: Older children–adolescents (age 12–20s)

School-based Supports for Youth:

  • Bounce Back (BB) is a cognitive-behavioral, skills-based, group intervention for elementary-aged students.
    • Target age: Kindergarten–5th grade
  • Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) is a school-based group and individual intervention that uses cognitive-behavioral techniques. It is designed to reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and behavioral problems, as well as improve functioning, grades and attendance, peer and parent support, and coping skills.
    • Target age: Grades 5–12
  • Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress (SPARCS) is a manually guided and empirically supported group treatment designed to improve the emotional, social, academic, and behavioral functioning of adolescents exposed to chronic interpersonal trauma and/or other types of trauma.
    • Target age: 12–21 years old
  • Support for Students Exposed to Trauma: School Support for Childhood Trauma (SSET) is an evidence-based intervention focused on managing the distress that results from exposure to trauma.
    • Target age: 10–16 years old (late elementary school–early high school)
  • Trauma-Focused Coping in Schools (TFC) is a skills-oriented, cognitive-behavioral treatment approach for children exposed to single-incident trauma and targets PTSD and collateral symptoms of depression, anxiety, anger, and external locus of control.
    • Target age: 6–18 years old

Parent-Focused Interventions:

  • Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) is a home-visiting parenting program developed to help parents nurture and respond sensitively to their infants and toddlers to foster their development and form strong and healthy relationships.
    • Target age: Infants and toddlers
  • Let’s Connect (LC) is a parenting intervention that teaches caregivers to identify and respond to children’s emotional needs and behaviors in a way that builds connection and warmth and promotes children’s emotional competence, sense of emotional security, and well-being.
    • Target age: 3–15 years old
  • Parent-Child Care (PC-CARE) is a dyadic intervention designed to expose the caregiver to strategies for enhancing the caregiver-child relationship and improving behavior management effectiveness.
    • Target age: 1–10 years old

Family-focused Interventions/Treatments:

  • Alternatives for Families–A Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (AF-CBT) is a trauma-informed, evidence-based treatment designed to improve the relationships between children and caregivers in families involved in arguments, frequent conflict, physical force/discipline, child physical abuse, or child behavior problems.
    • Target age: 5–17 years old
  • Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competence (ARC) is a framework for intervention with youth and families who have experienced multiple and/or prolonged traumatic stress. ARC identifies three core domains that are frequently impacted among traumatized youth, and which are relevant to future resiliency.
    • Target age: 2–21 years old
  • Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention (CFTSI) is a brief (5–8 sessions) evidence‐based early intervention for youth that reduces traumatic stress reactions and the onset of PTSD.
    • Target age: 7–18 years old
  • Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) is an intervention model for children who have experienced at least one traumatic event and/or are experiencing mental health, attachment, and/or behavioral problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder.
    • Target age: 0–6 years old
  • Family-Centered Treatment (FCT) provides a holistic approach with families in their homes. It emphasizes all areas of family functioning relevant to treatment needs, based on families’ identification of their needs and barriers to their functioning well as a family system.
    • Target age: All ages
  • Problematic Sexual Behavior–CBT for School-Age Children (PSB-CBT-S) is a family-oriented, cognitive-behavioral, psychoeducational, and supportive treatment group designed to reduce or eliminate incidents of problematic sexual behavior.
    • Target age: 7–12 years old
  • Risk Reduction through Family Therapy (RRFT) targets a broad range of trauma-related psychopathology (e.g., PTSD, depression) and risk behaviors (substance use/abuse, risky sexual behavior, non-suicidal self-injury). RRFT is individualized to the needs, strengths, developmental factors, and cultural background of each adolescent and family.
    • Target age: 13–18 years old
  • Strengthening Family Coping Resources (SFCR) is a manualized, trauma-focused, skill-building intervention. It is designed for families living in traumatic contexts with the goal of reducing the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma-related disorders in children and adult caregivers. SFCR provides accepted, empirically supported trauma treatment within a family format.
    • Target age: All ages
  • Trauma-Adapted Family Connections (TA-FC) is a manualized trauma-focused practice rooted in the principles of Family Connections (FC), specifically designed to reduce risk factors for child maltreatment, increase protective factors, improve child safety, and reduce internalizing and externalizing child behavior.
    • Target age: 0–18 years old
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