The AAP Wants to Hear from You: Pediatric TIC Training and Resources (Deadline 11/10/23)

The AAP invites pediatricians and other pediatric health professionals to participate in this brief survey to assess needs related to training on trauma-informed care. The survey will close November 10, 2023.

We all know the statistics: Almost half of American children, or 34 million younger than 18, have faced at least one potentially traumatic adverse childhood experience (ACE) and more than 1 in 7 adults report 4 or more ACEs during childhood. (Duffee et al., 2021) Exposure to traumatic events and their effects on the developing child and adolescent are a significant and rapidly increasing health issue. Pediatricians, as health and child development experts, are uniquely positioned to partner with families and public health practitioners to identify the effects of trauma in children, promote recovery and build resilience, and, most importantly, prevent children from experiencing trauma through a relational health (RH), trauma-informed care (TIC) framework. Many pediatric health care professionals and their community partners still lack the knowledge and skills to employ trauma, equity, and cultural lenses in their care for children and families.

To address these gaps and build the capacity to transform pediatrics into a trauma-informed and responsive, resilience-promoting, strengths-based system of care, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recently launched a Needs Assessment Survey to learn more about the current knowledge, practices, and resources relevant to TIC among pediatric health professionals. Survey results will be used to inform the current work of the AAP and to further plan for developing a National Center for Relational Health and Trauma-Informed Care. This Center will increase the capacity and competency of pediatricians and their teams to provide relational health and TIC to the millions of children seen by pediatric health clinicians.

Stay connected to the AAP by visiting www.aap.org/tic as survey results will be disseminated widely and upcoming activities related to Trauma-Informed Care will be shared.

Trauma-Informed Care Needs Assessment Survey

Reference: Duffee, J., Szilagyi, M., Forkey, H., and Kelly, E. (2021). Trauma-Informed Care in Child Health Systems. Pediatrics, 148(2). https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2021-052579