July/August 2012 In this Issue...

DTD ...................................... 1

TPP ...................................... 5

Piece of My Mind ................ 8

NACAC ................................ 9

Professional Directory ....... 11

Upcoming Events .............. 12

The mission of the Attachment & Trauma

Network (ATN) is to:

Promote healing of families through

support, education and advocacy.

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Definititon: DTD is a diagnostic proposal for DSM-5, authored by Bessel van der Kolk and colleagues.

The concept of DTD is based on a wide array of research data that comprises tens of thousands of children across multiple research studies. DTD results from growing up in an interpersonal context of ongoing danger, maltreatment, unpredictability, and/or neglect. 80% of all child maltreatment is at the hands of children’s own parents. Maltreatment embeds “hidden traumas” in infant - caregiver interactions that are neglectful, intrusive, unpredictable, threatening, aggressive, rejecting, or exploitive. These interactions convey that the world is a dangerous, unreliable, and/or indifferent place that offers little or no safety. Given the highly limited capacities of infants / young children to assess risk, this lack of physical and/or emotional safety quickly rises to the level of a subjective survival threat (annihilation anxiety) even though the objective nature of the event may not actually be at that level. For this reason, such events do not warrant a diagnosis of PTSD because the events are not “imminently life threatening”, a criteria for PTSD. However, it is subjective perception, and not objective lethality, that determines trauma. Using PTSD criteria, the element of trauma gets missed, and the erroneous diagnostic process has begun.

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Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) Lawrence B. Smith LCSW-C, LICSW

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Major diagnostic criteria for DTD: There are seven major diagnostic criteria for DTD.

Witnessing or experiencing multiple adverse interpersonal events involving caretaker(s) for at least one year.

Affective and physiological dysregulation.

Attentional and behavioral dysregulation.

Self and relational dysregulation.

Chronically altered perception and expectations.

At least two posttraumatic symptoms.

Functional impairment- at least two of the following areas: academic, family, peers, legal, health.

Duration of disorder is at least 6 months.

Developmental impacts of DTD: DTD can have wide ranging impacts on development, which if not addressed, can distort the developmental trajectory for the remainder of the individual’s life span.

Somatic effects: Trauma can affect appetite, digestion, excretory functioning, sleep, the immune system, and temperature regulation. The bodily sense of being unsafe tends to be concentrated most powerfully in the upper chest.

Autoimmune disorders: DTD can generate autoimmune disorders because chronic overreactivity to subjectively perceived threats depletes the immune system (elevated cortisol levels). This too often gets treated purely as a medical problem by a medical system prone to splitting people into discrete symptom clusters without understanding the overriding picture. The result is ineffective medical care. Application of medical intervention may produce short term improvement, but with the traumatic energy in the system continuing to drive the perception of threat, the immune system will only wear out again. This can lead to a “medical” conclusion of a chronic physiological condition that may need ongoing medical treatment. As a result, the real solution gets tragically overlooked.

Speech + language: Speech is impaired, and this blocks being able to talk about a traumatic state while in it. Because the language areas in the prefrontal cortex are not well connected to the amygdala, traumatic emotion can’t be effectively talked through. Language,

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as a whole, can’t accurately convey internal experience. However, the presence of emotion cannot be disguised out of the voice, as emotion is neurologically transported by the vagus nerve which runs right through the larynx.

Dissociation: In traumatized states, emotion, sensation, perception and thought are dissociated into separate fragments. This literally blocks understanding of what is happening which disturbs later memory processing. This sets the stage for learning to ignore the body and what is going on within it. DTD children organize themselves around “not xperiencing”. Because they are simply “not present” a good deal of the time, children with DTD do not reliably take in new information nor do they internalize information accurately across time. This clearly is highly relevant to

academic achievement, to learning from past experience, and to future planning skills. These impairments rob these children of important tools everyone uses for self-regulation.

Sensory systems: DTD can impair processing in one or more sensory systems if those systems were involved in early traumatic interactions. This can look like sensory based learning disabilities, but it isn’t. As a result, when LD approaches are applied in school, they often are ineffective. This is because the sensory processing system is compromised by the presence of a traumatic emotional charge embedded within it, like so much static in a radio station signal, rather than the processing system itself being impaired.

Attentional system: DTD also dysregulates the attentional system. This, of course, looks like AD/HD and gets overwhelmingly labeled and treated as such. Trauma takes executive functioning skills offline

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DTD can have wide ranging impacts on development, which

if not addressed, can distort the developmental trajectory

for the remainder of the individual’s life span.

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as well. The experience of trauma tends to blunt innate curiosity and exploratory impulses.

Fragmentation / disorganization: We know from object relations theory that whatever is communicated as being off limits to an infant’s caretaker is also off limits to the Self. Infants quickly pick up implicitly, what their caretakers do not want to see, will reject, are afraid of, will retaliate against… These elements become “off limits” which lays the groundwork for fragmenting the child’s Self construct. This fragmentation of the Self produces a pervasive state of internal disorganization that causes further fragmentation as time moves forward, and so the disorganization is both effect and then cause. This internal disorganization impairs integrative processing such that the integration of sensory, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral experience into a congruent picture does not occur and so children with DTD can appear very different across time and situations. This, in turn causes significant confusion for the adults interacting with these children on an ongoing basis. Given their confusion, the adults are prone to respond inconsistently to the child, thereby validating the child’s view of the world as unpredictable. Now the original traumatic context is being replicated in the present in a dizzying escalating spiral that carries profound implications for attachment.

Fragmentation / emotional awareness: The fragmentation of the Self disconnects children from their own feelings. Consequently, they may not know what they are feeling and may not even realize they are having an emotional experience. This will block developing emotional regulatory skills. Being internally disconnected will also prevent children with DTD from knowing what other people feel, with devastating effects on attachment and empathy skills.

The human face: As infants cannot escape the emotion on the caregiver’s face, they are trapped by what

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that face conveys. If the caregiver’s face conveys frightening emotion, the human face itself can become imprinted as a traumatic trigger. Here lies the origins of future avoidance of eye contact and physical closeness to the face which obstructs attachment.

Internal Working Model: Children with DTD assemble an IWM that portrays the world as inevitably bringing hurt and pain, and themselves as “terrible, horrible…” So they come to expect continuing traumatic experiences. Hence, their behavior is aimed at maintaining some sense of safety by reducing external threat and blocking internal experience and fragmentation. Yet, action that originates from themselves they often see as “evil or bad”, thereby creating an exquisite dilemma. Unfortunately this is frequently not understood by the adult world, and this survival behavior is given stigmatizing labels such as “oppositional” which reinforces the destructive view of the Self. This actually blocks emotional healing, as healing requires enormous safety to do the integrative work of connecting traumatic memories to other neural networks such that the traumatic material is ultimately integrated into the overall autobiographical narrative.

Symptomatic presentation of DTD: Given its multiple developmental interferences, DTD manifests in a wide array of symptomatic presentations. A partial list includes dissociation, rejection of help from others, intense levels of affect, oppositionalism, impulsivity, distrust, flashbacks, nightmares, attentional problems, physical aggression, psychosomatic disturbances, medical illnesses, school difficulties, depression, self-hatred, and self-injurious behavior. Dividing these symptoms up amongst multiple diagnoses, vs. seeing them as facets of global internal disorganization, guarantees treatment failure.

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As infants cannot escape the emotion on the caregiver’s face, they are trapped by what that

face conveys.

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ATN Board of Directors

Julie Beem, Executive Director

Denise Best, LMHC

Tanya Bowers-Dean

Stephanie Garde

Ken Huey, Ph.D.

Kelly Killian

Jane Samuel

Lorraine Schneider

Larry Smith, LCSW, LICSW

Nancy Spoolstra, Founder

Janice Turber, M.Ed..

Sheri Verdonk

Traumatic memory: Trauma is remembered as the discrete sensory components that were part of it. As such, it is embedded in the discrete sensory events without any processing of them vs. normal memory wherein there is active transformation of sensory events into a sensible narrative. Since sequential thinking is not functioning, the memories can’t be chronologically ordered. Consequently, the story of the trauma truly gets told at the end of effective therapeutic interventions, for it is then that cognitive functioning can be brought to bear to integrate the prior discrete somatic elements.

Guilt & shame: Trauma victims carry guilt and shame about what they did or didn’t do, in response to what was done to them at the time (trauma / shame interface). Trauma victims hate the little child within who complied, and did not fight, the abuser. This lays the foundation for a shame-based identity which reinforces the impact of fragmentation/disorganization on the Self.

DTD vs. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): PTSD stems from discrete, traumatic

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incidents rather than an ongoing pattern of embedded trauma. It manifests as specific responses to stimuli that are reminders of the traumatic incident. In the absence of traumatic triggers, PTSD symptoms may be minimal to wholly absent. PTSD lacks the pervasive developmental sequelae of DTD. Since PTSD can’t account for all the symptoms of DTD, other diagnoses are often added to PTSD to cover the additional symptoms. This produces fragmented diagnostic thinking and the partial diagnosis phenomenon. Once again, it’s the Blind Men and the Elephant story. The part is mistaken for the whole, leading to a lack of understanding about the whole (systemic dysregulation resulting from developmental trauma) and a partially effective, clinical response at best.

On the other hand, the “hidden traumas” of DTD do not meet the DSM-4 definition of a “traumatic event” as they are not imminently life threatening. Evidence based treatments for PTSD do not adequately address the pervasive developmental impairments and attachment difficulties that come with DTD.

November 30, 2011 Version 1.

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Temporal experience: Time is experienced by children with TPP as separate discrete moments, as a series of disconnected “nows”. There is little or no experience of time as a linear continuum. Attention is primarily focused on the “now” and neither past nor future is commonly invoked, for both lack a sufficient sense of “reality” to consciously impact the thinking, problem solving, planning, or behavioral functioning of children with TPP. Time tends to be viewed as a commodity to be spent, like money, rather than a resource to be used. It is typically spent on the procuring of “interesting experience”, and it is this experience that matters to the child, not time itself. Hence, saving time, wasting time or using time efficiently, all tend to be pretty meaningless concepts to children with TPP.

Time intervals: Children with TPP lack any tangible internal sense of intervals of time or its passage. The abstract units for measuring time- minutes, hours, days, etc.- carry little or no meaning; they are primarily words that adults frequently use. Analog clocks are wholly mysterious to children with TPP. While they can numerically interpret digital clocks they usually cannot translate such interpretations into any useful sense of time or its passage. While children with TPP often can assemble language that suggests an internal sense of time, that tends to be a learned veneer for interacting with the adult world and does not reflect an internalized understanding.

Nature of TPP: TPP can be thought of as “mechanical” in that they are intrinsic to the child’s current inner workings. They are not volitional in any sense. From their stance of “living in the moment” children with TPP tend to simply “do what they do” rather than choose to deal with time as they do. To an affected child, the temporal perceptual problems have always been there so they are simply embedded in the child’s sense of what is

normal and are not recognized being different from others’ perception of time. Thus, TPP remains invisible to the child and to the adults interacting with the child. As a result, these children often do not understand others’ frustration with them.

Etiology: The following appear to be the most likely pathways to a child having problems with perceiving and managing time: 1) neural damage from intrauterine substance exposure (mechanical), 2) delayed or deviant brain development in the frontal lobe

regions (mechanical), 3) an early history of unpredictable, inconsistent, neglectful, overwhelming, or misattuned responses from the caretaking environment (dynamic impact on IWM), and 4) a False Self organization to which experience does not adhere.

Resultant Problems Caused by TPP

Learning from past experience: Because focus is predominantly centered in the present moment, past experience and any related learning from it, is not accessed. Present behavior and decisions do not benefit thereby, which often leads to the repetition of identical or similar mistakes.

Advance planning: Advance planning is the exception and is usually limited to a matter of the same day. Anticipating future consequences or rewards is not factored into current behavioral choices. Deadlines and appointment times, being abstract markers in future time, tend to exert little influence on behavior. Hence, TPP produces lateness for appointments and missing of deadlines.

Perseverance: TPP undermines perseverance to reach a goal that is separated in time from the effort required to achieve it (e.g. grades). Because the future reward has no immediate relevance, the effort flags in favor of alternatives that do have immediate relevance.

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Temporal Perception Problems (TPP) Lawrence B. Smith LCSW-C, LICSW

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The Attachment & Trauma Network (ATN) recognizes that each

child's history and biology is unique to

that child.

Because of this we believe there is no one therapy or parenting

method that will benefit every child.

What works for one child may not work for another child.

Many children may benefit from a combination of different therapeutic

parenting methods and trauma-sensitive,

attachment-focused treatments.

We encourage parents to research different treatments and parenting

methods in order to determine what will work best for their unique

children.

www.attachtrauma.org

Time estimates: Children with TPP are highly inaccurate in their estimates (which they typically believe) of the time required to complete a task. Additionally, they tend to overestimate (without realizing it) the time that is available for starting and completing a task. This subsidizes procrastination.

Sequencing skills: TPP interferes with sequencing abilities. This can take several forms: 1) problems executing multi-step behaviors, 2) problems memorizing sequences like the months of the year, 3) problems telling a story in chronological order, 4) impaired reading comprehension in terms of the sequence of events.

Self-monitoring: TPP hinders observing and tracking of one’s performance over time. Contrasts between performance at different points in time generally aren’t made. As a result, there is no meaningful basis for assessing performance or the need for correction.

Cause and effect: Because connections are not made across time, children with TPP frequently don’t grasp causal relationships. Effects may be seen as random, or if a cause is identified, it is likely to be a highly subjective interpretation that bears little actual connection to the events. Cause and effect are often reversed such that the original effect is defined as the cause of the original cause.

Generalization: As generalization requires considering multiple events / situations that have occurred in time, children with TPP tend to have impaired generalization skills.

Absolute thinking: Given the seeming lack of reality to the future, children with TPP are liable to imagine that however things are in the present is how they will continue to be going forward indefinitely. In addition, past exceptions are not likely to be accessed. This breeds an “always/never” type of absolute thinking to which there are often strong emotional reactions. This is most commonly seen when adults delay or deny a request, which to the child can then seem like it truly will never happen. Emotional/behavioral outbursts are a predictable response.

Impulsivity: Since the focus is generally on the present moment, impulsive actions are “adaptive” given that perspective. Thus TPP can reinforce impulsivity

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and behaving other than impulsively, can make little or no sense to the child.

Interventions

Temporal mentoring: Adults function as “temporal mentors”. Explain connections across time, both for events that have happened, and events that could well happen given certain choices in the present. Give examples of how the typical functioning in the present moment can lead to undesired outcomes for the child. Point out when present moment thinking is happening so child can learn to recognize it. Emphasize the contrast between present-moment functioning vs.

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consideration of past and future. Have the child paraphrase this back. This intervention can be further enhanced with the use of visuals. This is most effective if done in multiple contexts by multiple adults.

Temporal communication: Communication about time that is solely done in a verbal abstract medium is likely to be ineffective with children with TPP. Adding in visual and experiential dimensions is preferable. This can be done by using timers for shorter time intervals and calendars to depict longer time frames. Using events as time markers rather than the more abstract “clock time” converts the abstract into experiential terms.

Behavioral contingencies: Behavioral contingencies need to be designed to have impact in or near to the same time and situation which the adults are trying to influence. If the contingency is too far removed in time, it will likely not be real enough to influence choices in the moment as the contingency is not related to that same moment. A tandem of both reward and consequence, or “carrot and stick”, tends to be more effective than either one alone.

Situational preparation: Prepare the child when they are about to enter situations that will require sequenced behavior. Review the needed sequence and point out where their present moment functioning has gone wrong in the past in that situation- emphasize the contrast.

Then and Now: With TPP there is a failure to clearly separate present from past which, in turn, precludes developing any understanding of how they could interact. Thus, children with TPP should not be thought of as really being able to apply the distinction of “then vs. now”. They are more likely to mix them into a temporal stew with no awareness that they are so doing. Thus, they frequently need overt teaching of “then vs. now” by comparing these two points in time and concretely noting the differences. Visual aids in the form of then vs. now collages can be of much assistance here. Divide poster board in half- one half is then- the other, now. Attach pictures that depict the different points in time to each side of the collage and review. The collage can then be displayed at home in an appropriate place. The collage should be put in the context of being a tool to help the child learn to separate out different points in time and be able to remember both. A

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variation on this is a Visual Time Line which portrays signififcant events in the child’s life. This can be two dimensional (drawn) or three dimensional (laid out with objects and figures). This intervention can help promote higher level, integrative thinking as it involves maintaining a dual focus (then & now) rather than an absolute singular focus (now).

Resolving polarities: Because children with TPP live primarily in the present, their focus on “now” allows them to express diametrically opposed positions at different points in time without experiencing any contradiction. This can seem quite manipulative if the relevant adult(s) don’t see the temporal perception problem. A helpful response is for the adult to hold up both sides of a contradiction that the child has flip-flopped between, and ask about the discrepancy. It is useful to ask where is the part of the child that believes the opposite of what is being expressed in the moment. It can also be helpful to ask what activates each position and what feeling (access) is connected to each position. This intervention promotes higher level integrative thinking as it replaces “either / or” with “both / and”.

Tracking in session: In therapy, the focus / interest of an AD child can shift very rapidly, much like an AD/HD child (but this is not AD/HD). It can be powerful for the clinician to be attuned to these shifts in the moment they occur and point them out. One way to do this is by saying something like, “That’s what was happening before and that moment is over now, so that’s not interesting now. Is that right?” The clinician can then generalize this observation by suggesting that this happens all the time and that it likely causes problems which the child does not realize. This is a beginning exercise in the child learning to track self across even brief time intervals.

February 26, 2012 Version 1.0

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Piece of My Mind When a Marathon Becomes a Sprint

Nine months is a long time if you’re waiting for the birth of a baby, working through a school year or embarking on a new therapy. But if you’re trying to take a $50,000 Pepsi grant and do all the wonderful projects you’ve dreamed about for years, nine months speeds by in the blink of eye. So here we are, turning in our official final report to Pepsi on what we’ve accomplished.

And frankly, we’re not finished. But we’re light years ahead of where we were a year ago when we were urgently asking, telling…and yes begging…everyone we knew to vote, and find those elusive yellow Pepsi caps. What a wild year it’s been! Here’s a quick rundown on what we’ve done in the last 9 months:

We started with a new logo, a new look.

The goal with our new look and especially the logo, newsletter and website was to convey who ATN is quickly, succinctly and in a way the public will better understand. Our new heart/hand logo and “Touching Trauma at Its Heart” tag line then needed to be printed, stitched and designed into everything for a consistent look. The Result: More people are starting to identify ATN and to have a more immediate understanding of what we do. Watch for even more items with ATN’s logo – bumper stickers anyone?

Social media.

Our Facebook page has really grown from 120 “likes” to over 600. And we’re tweeting as well! Twitter and Facebook have done a great deal to increase both awareness of ATN and of attachment and trauma issues in general. We also have a YouTube channel and are starting to work with LinkedIn. The Result: The volunteers who are managing our FB page are doing a very good job of posting items that “trend high” – which means they are viewed by the friends of those who like us and get an even wider audience.

Conference Attendance.

Attending conferences isn’t a specific goal itself. And you may even feel envious of the board members and volunteers who have been attending, exhibiting and speaking at several national and regional conferences. But the importance of our presence in these places can’t be overstated. Prior to now, ATN has rarely had the money to get people “out there” – so these conferences have been a huge step of our Awareness Task. And just in case you think it’s been all “fun and games” traveling around the country, let me tell you that our

dedicated volunteers have been sharing rooms, staying with relatives, driving long distance, riding mass transit, standing for hours at our booth, buying their own meals, foregoing sleep. And, of course, finding child care for their own children with challenges. Is going to an adoption or attachment/trauma conference fun? Sure. You get to rub shoulders with parents and professionals and learn what others are thinking. But it’s exhausting. And now…right now… is conference season, so we’re traveling at break-neck speed to Wash DC; Branson MO; Hagerstown, MD; Marietta, GA; Baltimore MD; Arlington, VA and more. The Result: More people are learning about ATN, thinking of ways to work with us, and we’re bringing the message of what traumatized children and their parents need.

Data, data and more data.

One of our “wish list” projects was to update AND upgrade our resource database, making it searchable and editable on our website. As you can tell, this is a project in progress (you can not search on the website…yet). We’ve identified and acquired the CRM system we’re going to use and are working with tech experts now on how to implement. Meanwhile, we’ve been calling resources to update their information and talking to other organizations about sharing data and the maintenance of a comprehensive post-adoption resource database. Pretty exciting stuff…but not necessarily a

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Julie Beem ATN Executive Director

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project we can get “finished” with the 9 months and the few thousands of dollars we’ve been able to earmark from the Pepsi grant for this project. The Result: we’ve got better, more current data than ever and a great framework for making this resource even better. But this is definitely an ongoing effort.

Our Crown Jewel.

The “dream project” where we’ve put the most time, money and effort from this grant is ATN’s Learning Center. Launching in September, the Learning Center (www.attachu.org) will be the site for all types of educational products dealing with attachment, trauma and the tools needed to help our children. The website itself has an intro video “Is Something Wrong?” that not only helps to define what is in the Learning Center, but is a great way to introduce family, friends and the other professionals (like teachers, doctors, social workers) to a better understanding of what is happening with our kids. The Learning Center’s Founding Faculty is an extraordinary group of attachment & trauma therapists and experienced therapeutic parents who are devoted providing comprehensive education on all things attachment and trauma-related for both parents and the professionals who work with our families. The funding through the Pepsi Grant is just “seed” money that has given us the launch. We’re anticipating lots of growth of the Learning Center. The Result: An accessible center to help parents and professionals learn what we need to help heal our kiddos.

And that wasn’t all…in the middle of all these Pepsi

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projects we’ve been up to two other things:

Support Buddies.

The project designed to connect members locally, or if not locally, at least in small dedicated groups to provide peer-to-peer support. We have six groups going strong! And room for many, many more.

The Boarder Movie support.

Starting in March 2011, when we pulled together families throughout the Southeast to be interviewed for the companion documentary, we’re bringing our support of this movie full circle with the Southeastern Premiere and Expo on Sunday, September 2, in Marietta, GA. It’s been ATN’s privilege to be able to bring this movie to the Atlanta area, and we hope if it’s at all possible that you join us in supporting this movie and the awareness to Reactive Attachment Disorder and trauma that it will bring.

So…what’s next? Well, that depends so much on where our next funds are coming from. We’re not dumpster diving for Pepsi caps anytime soon. But we’re looking at several grants, grant contests, donor campaigns and other ways to keep ATN growing and able to support the programs we’re building. Read more about our Chase Community Giving opportunity in this newsletter. And if you have donor and fundraising ideas or want to help, call me. Every dollar that comes into ATN is spent on our mission – Supporting, Educating, and Advocating for traumatized children and their families.

And we’ve ready to keep on running!!!!

Stephanie Garde and Julie Beem attended the 38th annual NACAC (North American Council on Adoptable Children) conference in Arlington, VA. The highlight for Julie was spending Thursday afternoon on Capitol Hill with other adoption advocates talking to legislators about post-adoptive support.

Here are some “golden nuggets” that we heard in the various workshops.

“If a legislator hears from 5 people (gets 5 phone calls or emails) on any issue, they consider that to be an important issue. It’s not hard to make your voice heard.” – Kim Stevens, NACAC Be Heard! Child Welfare Advocacy.

“The first step in taking control of a violent teen in your home is to put that teen on notice that you are going to start talking about it. Do not keep this violence a secret. Don’t tolerate the violence, get counseling for the entire family, and get respite.” - Maryanne Mica, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, Missouri, Walking on Eggshells: When the Violent Perpetrator at Home Is the Adopted Teen

“No change occurs in any system until a strong individual or group of people who have been wronged by that system take it on. Systems don’t fix themselves from the inside.” – Wright Walling, When Heroes Becomes Villains: When Courts and Social Services

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Overheard at NACAC

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Don’t forget to renew your membership! Individual (parent) memberships are $35 annually;

Professional memberships are $75 annually.

You have four ways to join:

1. Join online at www.attachtrauma.org. Click the Join button and use your credit card to renew your membership.

2. Print the membership form available on the website and mail it to:

ATN

P.O. Box 164

Jefferson, MD 21755

along with your check or credit card information.

3. Fax the completed membership form with credit card information to 1-888-656-9806 .

4. Call Lorraine at 1-888-656-9806 and give her your card information over the phone.

Memberships make great gifts. We have a scholarship program, so memberships can also be donated.

Scholarships are available for individual memberships.

Turn on Adoptive Parents and Children in Need of Help

“There comes a point in the group’s growth were people don’t like you anymore because you start questioning decision-makers about how to make things better. They may dislike you, but they start to respect you.” – Lori Ross, Executive Director of Midwest Foster Care & Adoption Association, Building Support Groups

“If you’re a person with Attachment, Trauma and Executive Functioning issues, you have a different toolbox than everyone else. And the world is designed for healthy brains’ toolboxes.” – John Sobraske, therapist, Attachment, Trauma and Executive Function

“How do you know it’s time for an RTC? Safety is the paramount issue. Everyone in the family has the right to be safe.” – Diane Mulligan, CHART, Navigating the Maze of Placing Your Child in Residential Treatment

“Forty-five percent of adopted children need therapeutic interventions – 30% will need things like respite and counseling. The Top 15 % will need intensive adoption preservation efforts and long-term interventions.” – Susan Smith, Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute,

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How Do We Advance the Field of Post-Adoption Services?

“Love conquers all.” Sam Tramel, DC Children’s Trust Fund “Love conquers all. That…and a lot of therapy.” Tonya Logan, Kayla’s Village, Parenting Both Biological and Adopted Children

“In normal situations, age 13 is where the brain begins the ability to think abstractly. New studies are showing that brains are not fully formed until age 26. In the brains that have experienced childhood trauma, the age that brains mature is pushed back to age 36 to 40.” - Debbie Riley, MS, Center for Adoption Support and Education, Beneath the Mask: Understanding Adopted Teens.

“Discrimination based on adoption is a reality.” Adam Pertman, Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, Adoption IS a Diversity and Social Justice Issue

“When someone tells you ‘ I could never do what you do,’ tell them ‘Well, you could donate funds to our organization!’” – Lori Ross, Building Support Groups

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ATN Professional Member Directory These professionals believe in ATN’s mission and have joined us as Professional Members

Denise Best, LMHC Adoption & Attachment Treatment Center of Iowa Iowa City, IA denisebest@mchsi.com http://www.aatcofiowa.com/ 319-430-4383 Matthew Bradley, MSW Beatitude House Waynesville, NC http://www.beatitudehouse.org/ 828-926-5591 Karen Buckwalter Chaddock 205 South 24th Street Quincy, IL 62301 kbuckwalter@chaddock.org 217-222-0034 Gayle Clark, Executive Director Miracle Meadows School Rte 1, Box 565 Pennsboro, WV 26415 http://www.miraclemeadows.org/ 304-782-3630 Shirley Crenshaw, MSW, LCSW Crenshaw, Inc. St. Louis, MO srcrenshaw@charter.net http://www.attachmenttrauma.com/index.html 314-374-4753 Beverly Cuevas LICSW, ACSW Attachment Center NW 8011 118th Avenue, NE Kirkland, WA 98033 425-889-8524 425-576-8274 fax bjcuevas@msn.com www.attachmentcenternw.net

Lark Eshelman, Ph.D. Chestertown, MD lark@larkeshleman.com http://www.larkeshleman.com/index.php 410-778-4317 Barbara S. Fisher, M.S. Center for Attachment Resources & Enrichment (C.A.R.E.) Decatur, GA 404-371-4045 www.attachmentatlanta.org Ken Huey, Ph.D. CALO (Change Academy Lake of the Ozarks) Lake Ozark, MO ken@caloteens.com 573-365-2221 Thomas Jahl, Headmaster Cono Christian School Walker, IA thomasjahl@mac.com http://www.cono.org/ 319-327-1085 Nina Jonio NeuroSolutions Gresham, OR nina@neurosolutions.org http://www.neurosolutions.org/ 206-910-6088 Carol Linder-Lozier, LCSW Louisville, KY clozierlcsw@gmail.com http://www.forever-families.com/ Jennie Murdock, LCSW, LMT Lehi, UT Jenniem1951@gmail.com 435-668-3560

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Direct any updates/changes to this listing to membership@attachtrauma.org.

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Upcoming Events in the Attachment/Trauma World

Michelle Nigliazzo, JD Nigliazzo Advocacy Center LLC West Plains, Missouri http://www.nigliazzoadvocacycenter.com/ Administrator@NigliazzoAdvocacyCenter.com Christine Owen Respite Provider Blairesville, GA charliemikeoh@windstream.net

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Lawrence Smith, LCSW Silver Spring, MD 301-558-1933 lbsmith@md.net Janice Turber, M.Ed. Center for Attachment Resources & Enrichment (C.A.R.E.) Decatur, GA 404-371-4045 www.attachmentatlanta.org

August 25, 2012 The Boarder Premiere Hagerstown, MD www.theboardermovie.com September 19-22, 2012 – ATN will be there! ATTACh: Understanding Attachment and the Effects of Developmental Trauma Baltimore, MD http://www.attach.org/2012-Baltimore/2012-savethedate2.pdf September 15, 2012 Respite Training for Children with Reactive Attachment Disorder Blairsville, GA https://respitetraining.eventbrite.com/ October 4-7, 2012 2012 EMDRIA Conference EMDR & Attachment: Healing Developmental TraumaWashington, DC http://2012emdriaconference.wordpress.com/about/ November 2-3, 2012 Adoption Knowledge Affiliates Annual Conference Northwest Hills Bible Church 12124 Ranch Road 620 North Austin, TX http://adoptionknowledge.wordpress.com/schedule/

Therapeutic Parenting for Adopted Children – Training Sessions Denise Best, LMHC http://www.aatcofiowa.com/Parent_Training.html Coming to a location near you throughout 2012:

September 8 & 9 – Denver, CO September 15 & 15 – Minneapolis, MN October 6 & 7 – Boston, MA * October 13 & 14 – New York City, NY October 20 & 21 – Washington, DC November 3 & 4 – Atlanta, GA * November 10 & 11 – Detroit, MI December 1 & 2 – Los Angeles, CA * December 8 & 9 – San Francisco, CA * ATN will be here!

Beyond Consequences Live Events http://www.beyondconsequences.com/bcilive/index.html

Sept. 22, 2012. Boulder, CO Oct. 6, 2012. Houston, TX Oct. 13,2012. Minneapolis, MN Oct. 27, 2012. Salt Lake City, UT Nov. 3, 2012. Orange County, CA Feb. 2, 2013. Denver, CO Mar 1, 2013. Austin, TX

The following Heather Forbes (BCI) seminars are scheduled for Spring, 2013. Dates TBD:

Kansas City, MO Milwaukee, WI Grand Rapids, MI Ann Arbor, MI

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CHASE-ing Our Next Contest Grant

Vote September 6—September 19

Help Attachment & Trauma Network (ATN) win up to $250,000 to help traumatized children & families.

Two ways to vote:

1. Chase Online Banking Customers — go to https://www.chase.com/online/Special-Offers/chasegiving_none.htm?dest=https://www.chase.com/online/Special-Offers/ccg_redirect.htm%3Fnptag%3DCCG . You will receive two votes—cast one for ATN!

2. Facebook Users—”allow” Chase Community Giving on your Facebook page. You will receive two votes—cast one for ATN!

— Get a Bonus Vote by “sharing” your ATN vote on your FB timeline. If one of your friends also votes from your link, you’ll get a Bonus Vote that you can cast for ATN.

How to Help? In addition to casting your vote for ATN (one on Facebook, one as a Chase Banking Customer; and one Bonus Vote) — TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW. Everyone with a Facebook page can vote. Everyone with a Chase Online Bank Account can vote. Asking them to give us 5 minutes to vote for ATN could mean thousands of dollars for hurting kids & families.

Not a Facebook User yet? No worries. We can help! Email julieb@attachtrauma.org

Don’t want to receive information from Chase on your Facebook Page? By “allowing” Chase Community Giving access to your Facebook page, you give them permission to post messages on your timeline—like friending someone. And you can always remove yourself from Chase once the contest is over.

What are the prizes? The top vote getter receives a $250,000 grant. But 196 organizations will receive grants ranging from $10,000—$250,000. Any of those amounts would help ATN greatly!

Not on ATN’s Facebook page yet? Now’s a great time — https://www.facebook.com/attachtrauma

Feel free to print this out, hang it up, pass it out...let your friends, co-workers and family know how much ATN helps families and how much their support will help us reach even more hurting kids!

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