Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress

The Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress (CPTS) at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia addresses medical trauma in the lives of children and families. Founded in 2002 as a multidisciplinary intervention development center within the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, CPTS collaborates worldwide with hospitals, universities, nonprofit, and government organizations to further its work in preventing and treating medical traumatic stress in healthcare settings. 

As a center focusing on addressing medical traumatic stress, we seek to:

  • Increase awareness and recognition of medical traumatic stress by healthcare providers using the Healthcare Toolbox.
  • Develop and promote empirically based screening and intervention for children and families who have experienced traumatic stress due to pediatric illness and injury.
  • Provide training to medical and mental health providers about best practices in assessing and treating medical traumatic stress.
  • Develop and disseminate resources about coping with traumatic stress to ill and injured children and their families.

Partners

Many professionals contribute to our work. CPTS staff collaborates with:

  • Healthcare providers from psychology, critical care medicine, emergency medicine, nursing, oncology, primary care, psychiatry and surgery at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
  • Medical and mental health providers nationwide.
  • Collaborators within the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

Working with our partners, we study the effects of medical traumatic stress on children, adolescents and families, and use our findings to raise awareness and improve treatment.

Activities

  • Developing an educational Web site for healthcare providers to provide information and training in trauma-informed care.
  • Providing training, information and resources for medical and mental health professionals in assessing and treating medical traumatic stress in children and their families.
  • Collaborating with national healthcare provider organizations to promote trauma-informed care and best practices in preventing and treating medical traumatic stress.
  • Adapting CPTS' assessments and interventions for medical traumatic stress across a wider range of healthcare settings and patient populations.
  • Translating CPTS' educational materials for children and parents into Spanish and developing additional Web-based and print resources to meet the informational needs of different patient populations.

Resources

In collaboration with the NCTSN, CPTS has developed a number of resources for medical and mental health providers to use in preventing and treating medical traumatic stress. These include:

  • The Pediatric Medical Traumatic Stress Toolkit for Health Care Providers, with practical tools, information, brief screening and intervention guidelines and patient handouts.
  • Parent tip sheets and child activity sheets for patients and families who may be at risk for traumatic stress as a result of serious illness, injury or prolonged hospitalization.
  • A comprehensive bibliography on medical traumatic stress in children and families, spanning the literature from 1974 - 2008 (in EndNote format).

For more information regarding these or other resources for medical or mental health providers, please contact: Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress, at cpts@email.chop.edu.