Dear Friends of the Trauma Center at JRI,
It has been almost 10 years since The Trauma Center moved its home to Justice Resource Institute and what a beautiful marriage it has been! The complementary missions, talents, and resources have combined to expand the research, training, and clinical service across levels of care throughout New England. Our training program has reached across the continental U.S. into the U.S. territories, Canada, Europe and Asia. It is truly amazing what like minds and hearts can do when we work together with passion. As you know, we need to continue to grow our endowment, so that we can provide security to our Center and maintain our independent voice and leadership in the field of trauma. As you make your year-end contributions, please consider a gift to the Trauma Center.
Some of our major accomplishments for 2014:
1. Completion and publication of "Unseen Wounds" the largest study of its kind on over 5,000 children and adolescents, which unequivocally demonstrates the equal or greater effects of psychological abuse (compared to physical and sexual abuse) on wide-ranging youth outcomes. Results of this study prove what Dr. van der Kolk has been preaching for years.
2. Successful expansion of our Complex Trauma Treatment Network's regional training and consultation into the U.S. territories. This constitutes the first intensive undertaking by any of the more than 150 National Child Traumatic Stress Network sites to reach multidisciplinary providers serving children in the U.S. territories in the 14-year history of the Network.
3. Participation in the Massachusetts Office of Victims Assistance Resiliency Center for survivors of the Boston marathon bombings.
4. Launch of international webcast of our Trauma Center Certificate Program with over 200 attendees worldwide. This represents a tenfold increase in the size and scope of our Certificate Program since joining JRI in 2005!
2015 Forecast:
1. Celebrating 10 years with Justice Resource Institute on April 1st.
2. Anticipated completion of the final wave of the national, multisite DTD epidemiological and diagnostic Field Trial by the end of 2015
3. Launch of the first pilot outcome study of Internal Family Systems for adult trauma.
Cutting Edge Research on Neurofeedback with Children & Adults
A specific interest we have at The Trauma Center is in Neurofeedback. We recently completed the first randomized controlled trial of clinical neurofeedback for adult trauma survivors, which revealed that 20 sessions of neurofeedback over 10 weeks not only dramatically reduces PTSD at levels equal or greater to those observed in top-tier research on trauma-focused therapies for adult PTSD, but also became the first PTSD treatment outcome study to demonstrate substantial improvements in executive functioning (e.g. impulse control, attention and concentration, decision-making and problem-solving, cognitive flexibility, etc.) as a result of treatment. The findings of this important study have major implications for intervention with survivors of chronic and severe trauma, many of whose lives have been significantly limited by deficits in these vitally important higher-order cognitive capacities the absence of which derails learning and functioning in school, vocation, relationships and society.
Recognizing the critical implications of these findings for early intervention with traumatized children, we realized we could not hesitate to embark on a randomized controlled study of neurofeedback for children despite the persistent refusal of federal research institutions to fund clinical research on neurofeedback. A generous donation from a private donor, in combination with dedication of our limited research reserves amassed the $200,000 necessary to cover costs associated with 50% of this study, which has now been actively underway since summer 2014. In this study we will recruit 40 children with histories of severe abuse or neglect and assign them to either brain biofeedback (clinical neurofeedback) or traditional biofeedback (heart rate variability retraining). After doing mini-brain mapping, we provide children assigned to the neurofeedback condition with 24 sessions of neurofeedback, administered by our well-trained staff. To date we have successful enrolled 15 children into this study, many of whom have been adopted by loving parents from the Boston area and beyond.
We ask for your help in undertaking a challenge match to raise the additional $200,000 necessary to cover the cost of completing this study. If the results of this child study are even remotely as positive as those of our recently completed adult study, the combination of these two studies will not only be game-changing for the traumatic stress field, but more importantly will establish an effective approach to help countless children and adults become functional members of society, including many of the more than 3 million new child maltreatment victims per year, a sizable percentage of whom prove to be non-responsive to traditional, talk-based psychotherapies. A well-done study is hoped to influence insurance companies to reimburse for this treatment--as currently almost no insurances do--which will result in more practitioners being trained and neurofeedback becoming more widely available to trauma survivors. Finally, studies such as these will allow us to create collaborative networks of basic neuroscientists and practitioners to work on gaining a greater understanding of ways to reverse the damage caused by early childhood deprivation, trauma and neglect.
The success of our research and training programs derives from their foundation in our clinical work. The focus of The Trauma Center continues to be helping children, adults and families who have been impacted by trauma, and we couldn't do it without your help. Thank you again for all of your support!
Sincerely,
Joseph Spinazzola Alexandra Cook
Executive Director Associate Director
(If you are interested in donating to this important research, please see the JRI website - it is easy to google.). Thanks Tina
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