Building a Trauma Center of Excellence for Children and Families in Colorado
A Community Academic Partnership
Moving Beyond Trauma
The overarching goal of this initiative between CU-Boulder’s Institute of Behavioral Science and Mental Health Partners (MHP) is to build capacity in trauma-focused, evidence-based interventions for youth and families in our Colorado community, including targeted interventions for Latinx families, military families, and families involved in the child welfare system.
Although our partnership with MHP began over a decade ago, this SAMHSA National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative started in 2016 expressly to develop a Trauma Center of Excellence for children and families called Moving Beyond Trauma to serve the local and surrounding communities.
MHP is well known for its large integrated behavioral health system and multiple sites of operation throughout Boulder, Broomfield, Lafayette, and Longmont. MHP provides behavioral health services to approximately 14,500 individuals per year from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and reaches over 25,000 in community trainings, workshops, and presentations throughout the community.
Our team supports MHP to develop their trauma-informed system of care to screen, assess, refer, and provide high quality trauma-focused treatment to children and their families who have been impacted by traumatic events, childhood traumatic grief, and family violence.
We serve as certified trainers, consultants, and collaborators in building MHP’s capacity to provide the following evidenced-based treatments:
- TF-CBT
- AF-CBT
- Let’s Connect®
The other primary aim of this initiative is to disseminate these evidence-based, trauma-focused treatments throughout other parts of Colorado and surrounding regions.