The Southwest Michigan Children's Trauma Assessment Center (CTAC) offers individual and group trainings and group presentations on childhood trauma and trauma-informed interventions. CTAC staff has trained over 85,000 professionals and community members on trauma related topics. This also includes coaching and consulting teams within the state of Michigan and nationally in developing their own trauma assessment centers.
For more details on how to schedule a CTAC training, including training fees, please call or email Jim Henry. You can also complete a training request form online by clicking on the button below.
Training topics
Trauma 101 training
This training helps staff, families and communities better understand the impact of trauma on the brain. This training can be tailored to meet the specific interests of various audiences (child welfare workers, mental health providers, school staff, medical personnel, court workers, residential staff, caregivers, etc.).
Trauma screening tools
The Trauma Screening Tool can help you better identify trauma exposure in the children you serve. With proper training, this tool supports appropriate triaging of services and/or referrals in your agency and community.
Increased capacity to offer trauma informed assessments
Training and tools are available for individual therapists and teams to build capacity to offer trauma-informed assessments for your clients.
Resource parent training/train the trainer
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network has developed training to help those who care for children with traumatic stress better understand and respond to their clients. A "train the trainer" event can be scheduled to prepare your staff and families to extend this training to the broader community.
Secondary Traumatic Stress
This training helps administrators and direct service staff to recognize, understand and process the stress that comes with serving children and families who have suffered traumatic stress.
Resident expert team
This training covers ways to develop a small group of staff with trauma expertise in a school or agency who can help infuse trauma-informed practices into daily decision-making and interventions.
Fetal alcohol exposure and its impact
Understand the impacts of prenatal exposure to alcohol, learn about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome screening and diagnosis, and learn how to support individuals who have received this diagnosis.
Critical incidents team
Learn how to develop a team to process critical incidents in a trauma-informed way to better care for your staff and better serve your clients.
Trauma-informed curriculum for children in head start/preschool
Review the curriculum and discuss implementation strategies for effective use with preschool aged children in classroom settings. Topics include developing safety, making friends, and managing emotions.
Trauma-informed curriculum for children in elementary and middle school
Review the curriculum and discuss implementation strategies for effective use with elementary and middle school aged children in classroom settings. Topics include developing safety, increasing relatedness, and learning to manage emotions.
Psychological first aid
This training provides an evidence-informed, modular approach to helping children, adolescents, adults, and families in the immediate aftermath of disaster and terrorism. Psychological First Aid has also been adapted for use with community violence. This training is designed to reduce the initial distress caused by traumatic events and to foster short- and long-term adaptive functioning and coping.
Additional training
If you have a need for specific training that you do not see above, a training can be tailored to meet your specific needs. Please fill out the training request form or contact (269) 387-7046. Please specify your target audience (i.e., child welfare staff, therapists, line workers, foster parents, school staff, etc.) and list any questions or topics that you would like the training to address. You may also list the length of training you desire.