Grief Enhanced Trauma Informed Interventions (GTI)

Many youths with traumatic stress disorders and maladaptive bereavement, especially in underserved communities, lack access to grief-enhanced trauma-informed care and effective evidence-based early interventions. Aligned with our mission and our Grief Enhanced Trauma Informed Care Process Model, we provide tier-level grief-enhanced trauma-informed approaches and programs. Therefore, we have adopted a stepwise approach of Grief-Enhanced Trauma-Informed Interventions (GTI) for youth with traumatic stress disorders to age-appropriate interventions based on the severity of symptoms and levels of functional impairment measured by GTC for both youth with traumatic stress disorder and/or maladaptive bereavement, and their caregivers. GTI is associated with improved well-being, enhanced contextual differentiation, and coping skills during trauma reminders, improved parent-child interactions, distress tolerance, and contracting safety skills with rapid stabilization of acute crisis. These salutary effects have been associated with evidence of concomitant improvement of vascular function, decrease in inflammation which correlated with an HPA axis normalization, reduction of reactivity to trauma reminders and core PTSD symptoms, and reduced major adverse events. Three levels of care include a) web-based interventions for mild symptoms and no functional impairments, b) Trauma and Grief Component Therapy for Adolescents (TGCTA), or Reminder Focused Positive Psychiatry intervention (RFPP) for moderate to severe symptoms without suicidality, or c) Safe Alternatives for Teens and Youths- Acute (SAFETY-A), Family Intervention for Suicide Prevention (FISP) for severe symptoms with suicidality.