Trauma Training Draws 190 Therapists From Across Arkansas

By Jon Parham

 Anthony Mannarino, Ph.D., developed the TF-CBT training model that has been adopted by thousands of therapists across the country to treat children who have suffered traumatic experiences.
Anthony Mannarino, Ph.D., developed the TF-CBT training model that has been adopted by thousands of therapists across the country to treat children
who have suffered traumatic experiences.

April 6, 2011 | The second AR BEST (Arkansas Building Effective Services for Trauma) training conference attracted 190 mental health clinicians from every corner of Arkansas, all of them seeking to improve treatment for children who have experienced various forms of traumatic stress.

The two-day conference, held March 30-31 at UAMS, was led by Anthony Mannarino, Ph.D., director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and program director of the Center for Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. Besides being an award-winning therapist and former president of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, Mannarino is responsible for developing trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), a highly successful method of treating young trauma victims that has been embraced by clinicians across the country.

Introduced to Arkansas two years ago as a joint project of the UAMS Department of Psychiatry and the UAMS Department of Pediatrics, AR BEST utilizes state-of-the-art training and the latest in research to provide the state’s youth and adolescent mental health specialists with the training they need to treat children who have suffered traumatic experiences. More than 150 mental-health professionals in Arkansas have already undergone the TF-CBT training sponsored by AR BEST, 50 of whom have completed the additional training necessary to receive a certificate in the program.

“TF-CBT is for children, adolescents and their families, to help these kids resolve all of the emotional issues associated with their traumas and to go on with their lives,” said Mannarino. “It’s about getting the kids to open up, because a lot of kids, particularly those with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) are reluctant to talk about their problems.”

The therapists who attended the conference had already completed extensive online training through the Medical University of South Carolina website and, following the training, will utilize a series of telephone consultations with national and UAMS professionals to reinforce the education they received.

Domestic violence, natural disasters, terrorism, suicide and sexual abuse are just a few examples of the kind of trauma children are likely to experience, Mannarino said, making TF-CBT necessary to help them overcome their fears and get the assistance they need.

Fifty percent of all children in the U.S. will be exposed to some form of traumatic experience by the time they are 16, added Mannarino. By using TF-CBT, therapists are able to gradually get young people the help they need and reduce their trauma symptoms while they are still young and developing.

“Arkansas is in the forefront of addressing the mental health needs of children who have experienced sexual and physical abuse as well as other forms of trauma. The mental health clinicians in attendance last week and those who have completed the program exemplify the state’s commitment to these children,” said Teresa L. Kramer, Ph.D., associate professor of the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute and organizer of the conference.

A total of 298 children and adolescents ages 2 to 19 have been registered with the AR BEST program since last April, the majority of them Caucasian females with a history of sexual abuse. The average age of those children registered by the mental-health professionals was 11.2 years old, with most of them exhibiting serious behavior problems of symptoms of PTSD.

Karrah Dickeson, clinical director for the Children’s Advocacy Center in Texarkana, was recognized at the conference as the 2011 Outstanding Therapist for her work in treating traumatized children.