We had our trauma informed meeting today. Our school group will be asking a member of the Local Community Mental Health to present at the beginning of the school year to the teachers on trauma symptoms and strategies to use with suspected students. There is one catch. I have worked with our CMH and it is not trauma informed. I expressed my concern at our meeting that a presentation to the schools by a non-trauma informed individual could set us backwards. Our CMH is the type that does childhood polypharmacy not child psychotherapy or other effective family treatment. I have seen many families with kids with serious behavioral health issues who refuse to go there. I end up managing them. I have kind of gotten good at it but that is an aside. There is no real trauma-focused CBT going on. They treat 14 kids in a 50,000 service area receiving trauma focused CBT and have to do telemedicine with the state for every session. This is not a criticism of their work. However, I am very certain they don't really get trauma. I would like resources I can use and learn from as I was asked to be present as this CMH member discusses what she would cover with the educators in our region and I am not the most knowledgable in this area but I am the most dedicated. I will go to traumasensitiveschools.org and check out everything there but I want to be really prepared. Can any of you give me awesome resources that I can read, learn about and share. I know this can be complicated but I appreciate the help. Thanks Tina
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