Crittenton Children's Center in Kansas City has announced a three-year, $2.3 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to expand its early childhood trauma intervention program in Missouri.

The grant will be used to replicate the Head Start-Trauma Smart (HS-TS) model, which is designed to address the effects of complex trauma — community violence, the arrest of a family member, homelessness, separation from parents — on preschool-age children, to rural, suburban, and urban communities in the state. Using trauma-focused training and skill development, the program aims to create calm classrooms and home environments where children can learn and thrive. To that end, licensed therapists provide classroom consultation and individual/family therapy, while working to develop systemic trauma awareness among Head Start staff and parent mentors and resiliency and practical life-long coping skills among children.

Launched in 2010 with a three-year, $500,000 grant from RWJF that was matched by $700,000 in local funding, Head Start-Trauma Smart was created by Crittenton therapists in response to the negative impact of traumatic experiences on children and staff in Kansas City's urban core Head Start programs. Based on the federally designated CLASS evaluation tool, measures of the health and quality of relationships in participating Head Start classrooms since then have shown consistent improvement from baseline scores, with some dimensions meeting or exceeding national norms.

"Child development and growth occurs in the context of family and community. It is immensely gratifying that the Head Start-Trauma Smart program is effectively making differences in the way communities deal with and heal after trauma," said Crittenton Children's Center CEO Janine Hron. "With the tools they've gained, the children and the adults who love them are not just surviving after trauma; they are thriving. Thanks to the generosity of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we now have the opportunity to test the replicability of the model in a wide variety of settings, while simultaneously positively affecting the health and welfare of thousands of Missouri families."