UTHSCT Faculty Member Receives Grant to Improve Treatment for Victims of Child Abuse and Trauma

April 9, 2019

Jeffrey N. Wherry, Ph.D., ABPP, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, is the Co-Principal Investigator for a five-year grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. The project is aimed at improving clinical practice for children who have been victims of abuse and trauma. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least one in seven children experienced abuse and/or trauma last year. Moreover, in the United States, the total lifetime economic burden associated with child abuse and trauma is approximately $124 billion.

Wherry partnered with Sara Dolan, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University, who served as the Co-Principal Investigator on the grant. The grant, which totals nearly $3 million, allows Wherry and his collaborators: Baylor University, National Children’s Alliance (NCA), National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), to develop and implement new training methods in assessment and diagnosis for mental health professionals, ultimately leading to improved outcomes for children who have experienced abuse or trauma.

Currently, clinicians often resort to free, less empirically supported assessment methods which are in the public domain. These screening techniques, while faster and more cost-effective than formal, evidence-based assessments, can cause clinicians working with abused and traumatized children to overlook certain disorders and focus on seemingly more obvious problems. These practices are typically not formal assessments, but checklists which may miss key components for diagnosis.

The NCTSN has been influential since 2001 in training mental health professionals in the use of evidence-based treatment (EBT) methods for trauma. These methods are interventions that have been validated through scientific studies to be effective for treating a particular disorder. The problem, Wherry says, is that these professionals have not received formal training in graduate or professional school and may miss symptoms associated with abuse and trauma that are subtle and deserve attention in treatment.

By using evidence-based assessments (EBA), diagnostic methods that are grounded in the most current scientific knowledge, can inform good treatment. Wherry added the comparison, “An orthopedic surgeon would not consider surgical repair of a torn rotator cuff of the shoulder without first assessing via a magnetic resonance imaging procedure. The same should be true in serving the complicated mental health needs of abused and traumatized children.”

Dolan noted, “Oftentimes clinicians are leaping to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),” Dolan said, “and they might miss other things like depression or other kinds of anxiety or suicidal behaviors. If they’re jumping right to PTSD, they’re going to give PTSD treatments, which is fantastic, but that might not be the correct treatment.”

Dr. Wherry already has implemented this training model in nine states with the assistance of trained trainers and NCA. NCA is the national membership organization and accrediting body for the 881 children’s advocacy centers (CACs) across the United States who serve sexually abused children using a multidisciplinary approach.

“After years of working alongside Dr. Wherry to help clinicians access these crucial assessment tools, this project is a welcome opportunity to scale training to clinicians around the country,” said NCA executive director Teresa Huizar. “Our CACs already know the value of evidence-based assessments in treatment planning and measuring progress. Now, thanks to this project, we’ll be able to reach many more of the nearly 370,000 children we serve each year with improved services to help them recover from abuse.”

In addition to the unique content, the training will involve either in-person training, interactive, live videoconferencing, or a webinar followed in all three instances with consultation around specific cases using live videoconferencing. Thus, while workshops can increase knowledge and change attitudes, the consultation phase is the most scientific approach to teaching new skills. There also is a component of the project which will train doctoral students in clinical psychology at five universities across the nation during the duration of the five-year grant.

“The support for training afforded by this SAMHSA grant is exciting,” said Wherry. “We are now part of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN)—a group of 100 agencies and universities training clinicians and serving traumatized children. We will make training available to 66 community-based agencies serving children in the NCTSN, and also will offer training to 881 children’s advocacy centers across the nation. Over the course of 5 years we hope to train more than 800 clinicians and doctoral students in evidence-based assessment of abused and traumatized children. When you consider the number of children served by these clinicians, the impact is exponential. Additionally, we will be training additional trainers, so that the impact continues beyond the funding of the grant.”

While the immediate goal of the grant-funded project is to evaluate the effectiveness of different methods of training providers, Wherry says the work is related directly to UTHSCT’s mission to serve Northeast Texas and beyond through excellent patient care and community health, comprehensive education, and innovative research.