Child Parent Psychotherapy Learning Collaborative

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Description

Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) is an intervention model for children aged 0-5 who have experienced traumatic events and/or are experiencing mental health, attachment, and/or behavioral problems. A central goal is to support and strengthen the caregiver-child relationship as a vehicle for restoring and protecting the child’s mental health. Treatment also focuses on contextual factors that may affect the caregiver-child relationship (e.g. cultural norms and socioeconomic and immigration-related stressors). For children exposed to trauma, caregiver and child are guided over the course of treatment to create a joint narrative of the traumatic event and to identify and address trauma triggers that lead to dysregulated affect and behavior.
 
Therapeutic sessions include the child and parent or primary caregiver. If clinically indicated, treatment may include multiple caregivers and/or siblings with the format of sessions determined jointly with the caregivers after learning about the needs of different family members during the Foundational Phase of treatment.
 
A CPP LC includes a combination of didactic training, active learning through clinical practice and case presentations, supervision/consultation, and agency/team support. This 18-month training is intensive enough to allow most clinical practitioners to adopt CPP. Participating agencies will increase their capacity to provide an evidence-based trauma treatment for children in the birth to six age range. Participants who complete the training will be eligible for the roster of trained CPP clinicians.

Learning Objectives

  • Through an 18-month long training, participants will gain core CPP knowledge and competencies to enable them to adopt CPP
  • Participating agencies will increase their capacity to provide an evidence-based trauma treatment for children in the birth to six age range

Training Faculty

Julie A. Larrieu, PhD, a developmental and clinical psychologist, is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Tulane University School of Medicine. For 25 years, Julie has been a member of a multidisciplinary team working with infants and young children who have been maltreated, and their caregivers. Julie is Director for the Tulane site of the Early Trauma Treatment Network. This program within the National Child Traumatic Stress Network is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and provides training in Child-Parent Psychotherapy for mental health providers working with children from birth to six years who have experienced interpersonal violence and other types of trauma. She is an endorsed national and international CPP trainer.

Shannon Bekman, PhD, IECMH-E is a licensed clinical psychologist at the Mental Health Center of Denver and the Director of Right Start for Colorado, a SAMHSA-funded infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) initiative aimed at expanding Colorado’s IECMH workforce and clinical services. She is also currently a ZERO TO THREE fellow. Prior to her current role, she developed Mental Health Center of Denver’s infant and early childhood mental health programming and brought to Denver much needed clinical services for children ages 0-5 and their caregivers, with an emphasis on the amelioration of trauma. Shannon is passionate about serving young children who have experienced abuse, neglect and trauma and disseminating CPP across Colorado to ensure all young children have access to trauma treatment, when needed. She is a rostered CPP therapist and supervisor, as well as an apprentice trainer.

Jay Willoughby, PsyD, is a licensed clinical psychologist at the Early Childhood and Family Center, a specialty behavioral health clinic for children birth to six years old and their families at Aurora Mental Health Center. Jay is a member of both the Site Leadership Team and Steering Committee for the Arapahoe County Safe Baby Court Team, an evidence-based court model for child welfare-involved infants and toddlers, currently funded by ZERO TO THREE. For the past eight years, Jay has regularly implemented CPP, as well as other early childhood best practice models, in the treatment of child abuse and neglect, medical trauma, and traumatic grief and loss. Jay is a rostered CPP therapist and supervisor, as well as an apprentice trainer.

Target Audience

  • We typically train agency teams rather than individual therapists as we feel that working with young children who have experienced trauma requires the support of a team. Moreover, ongoing reflective practice with a supervisor or colleague is a core part of CPP.
  • Rural/frontier range practitioners who operate without an IECMH team are encouraged to apply.
  • Private Practitioners applying to a CPP training should form teams committed to supporting each other and meeting at least twice monthly for reflective consultation at least for the duration of the learning collaborative.
  • All clinical team members seeking to complete training and be eligible for the CPP roster must be master’s or doctoral-level psychotherapists with a degree in a mental health discipline
  • If any participating team members are not yet licensed, they must be supervised by a licensed team member who also participates in the training
  • A CPP Learning Collaborative is not considered intensive enough for an intern to learn CPP. Implementation-level training for interns is available through endorsed CPP internships: https://nrepp.samhsa.gov/Legacy/ViewIntervention.aspx?id=194

Training Cost

This training is being sponsored by Right Start for Colorado with generous funding from SAMHSA and members of the Colorado Early Childhood Funders Network including Buell, Caring for Colorado, Community First, Piton and Zoma Foundations, thus costs of the Learning Collaborative are covered. However, organizations may be financially responsible for the purchase of required reading material and travel costs associated with clinicians attending Learning Sessions 2 and 3, if they are able to occur in person. 

CEUs

The Mental Health Center of Denver is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists and may be able to provide CEUs for the CPP learning sessions. The Mental Health Center of Denver maintains responsibility for this program and its content.