PLEASE NOTE: Greensboro AHEC is now known as Piedmont AHEC. The organization’s name changed on February 1, 2023.

Photo above (left to right): Lindsay Grether, project specialist, Greensboro AHEC; Christopher S. Golding, MSN, RN, director of regional education-program development, Greensboro AHEC; Karla Siu Daugherty, MSW, LCSW, therapist & clinical program director, El Futuro, Inc.; Luke Smith, MD, psychiatrist & executive director, El Futuro, Inc.; Cheryl Lanktree, PhD, and John Briere, PhD, department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, University of Southern California; Liz Griffin, MSW, LCSW, mental health continuing education coordinator, GAHEC; and Christine Siegfried, MSSW, NCTSN Liaison, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute.

Held October 14-15, 2015, Integrative Treatment of Complex Trauma for Adolescents (ITCT-A) provided an overview for clinicians, psychologists, social workers, counselors, substance abuse counselors, educators, and other mental health and health professionals. ITCT-A is an evidence-based treatment that was developed to assist clinicians in the evaluation and treatment of adolescents who have experienced multiple forms of psychological trauma, often in the context of negative living conditions such as poverty, deprivation, and social discrimination.

Hosted at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work’s Tate Turner Kuralt Building, John Briere, PhD, and Cheryl Lanktree, PhD, of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Southern California (USC) led a discussion of the central principles, assessments, components, treatments and interventions for complex trauma for adolescents. A key message was that most trauma is complex in that individuals often suffer from multiple traumas over a lifetime and not just from a singular event. Thus, multiple treatments are usually necessary to aid these adolescents.

Having been to a training with Briere and Lanktree in California last year, Karla Siu, MSW, LCSW, therapist and clinical program director at El Futuro, Inc. of Durham contacted Greensboro AHEC in hopes that this expertise could be shared with practitioners in North Carolina.

“There are many reasons why this is relevant right now,” said Luke Smith, MD, psychiatrist and executive director of El Futuro, Inc. “The influx of unaccompanied minors into our area, high rates of human trafficking that are coming to our attention, and the way trauma during childhood affects brain development have increasingly received attention. All of these are noteworthy and are impacting our health care providers. AHEC is doing something special in offering this training!”

Case studies were included in this program that emphasized working with unaccompanied minors, blended families, and acculturation in the Latino population. After completing the training, participants were eligible for optional ongoing consultation via monthly conference calls with Lanktree and Briere.

The program was presented by Greensboro AHEC in partnership with El Futuro Inc. and the USC Adolescent Trauma Training Center (USC-ATTC) – a designated Treatment and Service Adaptation Center of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN).