The Trauma Systems Therapy Training Center at NYU Langone’s Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry provides training, consultation, and technical assistance for agencies who seek to implement our treatment model.

Trauma Systems Therapy is a comprehensive program designed to give agencies in the child services system (such as mental health, child welfare, schools, juvenile justice, refugee programs, and residential programs) the tools to understand the traumatized child’s problems in their full context and to implement effective interventions to address these problems, no matter how complex or challenging.

Although Trauma Systems Therapy can help any child with a history of trauma who has difficulty regulating emotion or behavioral states that may be related to the trauma, agencies most often engage us to set up a program to treat their most challenging children and families. According to the Pareto Principle, agencies typically spend 80 percent of their time and resources on the 20 percent of children and families who are most challenging and the other 20 percent of their time and resources on the other 80 percent. We believe that Trauma Systems Therapy offers something uniquely effective for the 20 percent of children and families that your agency is most worried about.

To establish a Trauma Systems Therapy program in your agency, we work with you to build a clinical team and help you build the capacity to sustain and grow your team over time. Typically, agencies form agreements with the Trauma Systems Therapy Training Center for one or two years. We are also glad to work with you to create specialized trainings for your agency.

We provide training and certification for providers, supervisors, and trainers. Providers can deliver TST to their clients, while supervisors can oversee the management of TST providers, track and monitor fidelity data, and lead TST meetings. Eligible supervisors can become TST trainers to train new providers within their own agency. There are several pre-requisites to be considered when identifying agency staff to be trained in TST:

TST Provider Pre-Requisites

For Mental Health Clinicians: Preferred candidates include licensed master's degree in social work, mental health counseling, marriage & family therapy, or creative arts therapy OR a doctorate in social work or psychology/psychiatry, preferred 2 years providing clinical services to children with a traumatic stress history

For Home/Community-based Providers/Case Workers: Minimum bachelor's degree, preferred 1 to 2 years' experience providing home & community-based case management services to children with a traumatic stress history

For Psychopharmacologists: Minimum MD Psychiatrist OR masters or doctorate level clinical Nurse Practitioner (NP) or Specialist (CNS) with prescribing privileges, experience working with children.

TST Supervisor Pre-Requisites

Eligible agency supervisors must score at least 70% on the Never Look Away post-test and have a preferred minimum year of supervisory experience and previous experience as a TST provider.

TST Trainer Pre-Requisites

In consultation with the Trauma Systems Therapy Training Center, agencies identify trained TST Supervisors Supervision to be enrolled in the train-the-trainer program. Eligible trainers should have completed at least 10 cases in the last six months that meet minimum fidelity standards and preferred prior experience as a non-TST trainer.

Trauma Systems Therapy, or TST, is a treatment originally developed in the early 2000s by Glenn Saxe, MD, the director of the Trauma Systems Therapy Training Center, and by Heidi Ellis, PhD, of Boston Children’s Hospital, to fill a critical gap in the field of traumatic stress. Their approach was published in the book Trauma Systems Therapy for Children and Teens, published by Guilford Press.

For more information on Trauma Systems Therapy and what setting up a program in your agency entails, view our Trauma Systems Therapy brochure.