New England Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Announces Inaugural Fellows

By Christine Mason and Martha Staeheli

The New England Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (New England MHTTC) Network, one of the 10 Regional Centers of the MHTTC Network, announced today the 23 Fellows who will support the Childhood-Trauma Learning Collaborative (C-TLC).

The C-TLC Fellows Program, under the auspices of the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health (PRCH), builds upon the New England MHTTC’s work to help teachers, administrators, and other school staff vision, plan, and monitor implementation of compassionate practices that ameliorate the effects of trauma, amplify protective factors, and increase the availability of educated and nurturing adults and teachers within schools who can meet the mental health needs of students.

Yale PRCH, a program at Yale Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry, works with systems, organizations, communities and individuals to strengthen their capacity to deliver effective, culturally responsive, recovery-oriented practices centering the lived experiences of people in recovery. Through the New England MHTTC’s C-TLC initiative, PRCH is collaborating with the Center for Educational Improvement (CEI)—a leading nonprofit organization in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area that identifies, shares, and applies 21st century innovations in learning. C-TLC Fellows will serve as local champions who support the dissemination of trauma-informed, child-centered interventions that improve resilience, learning and achievement for children who have experienced trauma in the six states that comprise the New England MHTTC Region One area: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. Each C-TLC Fellow will participate in monthly webinars and have access to resources on school-based mental health. Fellows will assist in strategic planning and communications within their state to alleviate the impact of trauma and help schools understand their role in building supportive classrooms to help children who are most at-risk.

“The goal of PRCH is to transform behavioral health programs, agencies, and systems to be culturally responsive and re-oriented to facilitating the recovery and social inclusion of the individuals, families, and communities they serve. We are pleased to expand our work with schools and educators to include a technology-based tool, the S-CCATE, designed to help administrators, teachers, and other school staff enhance the culture of compassion in school communities.” Larry Davidson, Ph.D., Director, Yale PRCH

As a part of this effort, C-TLC Fellows are also inviting at least 20 schools in their states to take the School Compassionate Culture Analytic Tool for Educators (S-CCATE) and become a member of the broader C-TLC initiative.

The S-CCATE is a brief, validated, online assessment tool uniquely designed to help schools gauge social connections and concrete support to enhance children’s social-emotional development and capacity. This approach strengthens, values, and increases social-emotional competence, accelerates learning, and develops a sense of well-being for students, teachers, and the wider school community. The results of the S-CCATE will be used to develop evidence-based, trauma-informed, locally applicable interventions for use by C-TLC Fellows and their school communities.

Schools in the New England area are invited to contact CEI’s Director of Communications and Development Ingrid Padgett vial email or phone (ipadgett@edimprovement.org; 1-800-994-6441) for more information on the broader initiatives of the Childhood-Trauma Learning Collaborative and opportunities to bring the S-CCATE Assessment tools to their school communities.

About the New England MHTTC

Funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the MHTTC Network includes 10 Regional Centers, a National American Indian and Alaskan Native Center, a National Hispanic and Latino Center, and a Network Coordinating Office. The purpose of the MHTTC Network is technology transfer—disseminating and implementing evidence-based practices for mental disorders into the field. Our collaborative network supports resource development and dissemination, training and technical assistance, and workforce development for the mental health field. We work with systems, organizations, and treatment practitioners involved in the delivery of mental health services to strengthen their capacity to deliver effective evidence-based practices to individuals. For more information about the New England MHTTC’s programs and services, visit https://mhttcnetwork.org/centers/new-england-mhttc/home.

Our Fellows

The Childhood-Trauma Learning Collaborative 2019 Fellows are a diverse group of educational leaders—including assistant superintendents, principals and assistant principals, school psychologists and counselors, social workers, and teachers—from each of the six states in the New England region. View the complete listing of our 2019 C-TLC Fellows.