University of Maryland’s School of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Social Work and Kennedy Krieger Family Center are partners in the newly formed NCTSN Category II Center. Over the next four years, the partners will combine their expertise to develop, implement, evaluate and disseminate family interventions for underserved urban families and military families experiencing chronic trauma and stress.

The FITT Center's goal is to develop, evaluate, disseminate and put into practice family approaches that promote safety and recovery for all family members. Living in persistently harsh, impoverished, and violent conditions erodes a family’s ability to attend to the daily tasks of living and taxes resources for coping with daily stress. Traumatic exposures to, for example, domestic, school and community violence or child physical and sexual abuse create significant disruptions in emotional stability for all members. Strengthening coping skills, building relationships and connecting to community resources can help families get “back on track.” Skill-based therapies that enhance rituals and routines, promote protection, improve communication, and increase connection to community-based services hold promise for supporting family recovery and resilience. The FITT Center aims to increase access to family treatments that are trauma-specific, family-centered, and target all members of the family. We envision that adult caregivers actively working through their own traumas and losses will be better equipped to support child development and recovery, leading to positive child and family outcomes.

The FITT Center approach will be informed by the voices of local family and youth who have dealt with trauma and also by the experiences of local and national traumatic stress experts. Research convincingly demonstrates that all relationships within the family are impacted by their children’s trauma experiences and that family response is predictive of child outcomes. A strength-based Family-Informed Trauma Treatment Model is needed to target safety and recovery for the entire family and help each member meet their full potential. The FITT Center model builds upon existing evidence-based trauma treatments and introduces 3 new family interventions aimed at partnering with families to strengthen their coping, recovery and resiliency. The new family interventions are:

1. Strengthening Families Coping Resources: A multifamily group developed by Dr. Laurel Kiser at UMB SOM that uses family rituals, routines and traditions to support family coping and posttraumatic recovery and growth. This manualized intervention builds coping resources for increasing the family’s sense of safety, helping families function with stability and cope with crises, helping families regulate their emotions and behaviors, and improving family communication about and understanding of the traumas they have experienced. The model includes family work on storytelling and narration, which builds to a family trauma narrative. Please see the SFCR Promising Practice Fact Sheet for more information.
2. Trauma-Adapted Family Connections is being developed and implemented by a team of clinicians and researchers at the University of Maryland School of Social Work led by Drs. Kathryn Collins and Fred Strieder. This comprehensive family strengthening model builds on 10 years of community-based family intervention and research. Trauma Adapted Family Connections is centered on public health and social work perspectives. The program partners with families to develop their skills in ensuring safety in their homes and communities, to provide information about trauma including “normal” behavioral and emotional reactions that are influenced by trauma, to promote parenting skills needed for parents to communicate this information to their children, and to open dialogue in families about the effects of traumatic situations on the family’s health and well being.
3. FamilyLive is a trauma-focused, intensive family therapy intervention developed by clinicians at the Kennedy Krieger Institute Family Center in response to the complex needs of urban families affected by traumatic stress. FamilyLive addresses the impact of intergenerational trauma on the adult caregiver’s ability to provide safety, predictability and emotional security. FamilyLive targets family communication to create an environment in which traumatized children can learn to manage emotions, regulate behaviors, and develop capacity to narrate positive and negative experiences. FamilyLive is being manualized by Sarah Gardner, Kennedy Krieger Family Center.