HAPPENINGS 18 FALL 2021 INSIGHT
New Center Addresses Trauma and Resiliency in Native American Children and Families College of Public Health researchers have been awarded a $3 million grant over five years by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to establish and support a new center, the National American Indian and Alaska Native Trauma and Service Adaptation Center (TSA). The goals of the TSA are to increase the national infrastructure and workforce capacity to prevent, reduce, and treat trauma as well as to increase wellness and resilience among American Indian and Alaska Native children, adolescents, and their families. The TSA will be housed within the Native Center for Behavioral Health, which is a research center in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health at the UI College of Public Health committed to developing programs to support the behavioral health workforce in Native American and Alaska Native communities across the country. “Importantly, our efforts will not endorse the inevitability of adverse outcomes,” says Anne Helene Skinstad, director of the Native Center for Behavioral Health and the program director for the new center. “The center will prioritize identification and dissemination of programs and approaches that seize the opportunities presented in early childhood and adolescence as an optimal time for prevention and intervention to mitigate trauma and promote resilience.”
