About Our National Network

Over the past 20 years significant advances have been made in the field of child traumatic stress. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) is a groundbreaking effort that blends the best practices of the academic clinical research community with the wisdom of front-line community service providers. The work of NCTSN members ranges across settings, disciplines, age groups, and trauma types, developing and delivering high-quality services to large numbers of children and their families. The National Center for Child Traumatic Stress (NCCTS) coordinates the NCTSN. 

The NCTSN is funded by the Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, US Department of Health and Human Services through the Donald J. Cohen National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative. This congressional initiative recognizes the profound, destructive, and widespread impact of trauma on American children's lives.

The mission of the NCTSN is to raise the standard of care and improve access to services for traumatized children, their families, and communities throughout the United States.

Together, the NCTSN and the NCCTS are committed to:

• Raising public awareness of the scope and serious impact of child traumatic stress on the safety and healthy development of America's children and youth.
• Advancing a broad range of effective services and interventions by creating trauma-informed, developmentally and culturally appropriate programs that improve the standard of care.
• Working with established systems of care including the health, mental health, education, law enforcement, child welfare, juvenile justice, and military family service systems to ensure that there is a comprehensive trauma-informed continuum of accessible care.
• Fostering a community dedicated to collaboration within and beyond the NCTSN to ensure that widely shared knowledge and skills become a sustainable national resource.
• Continuing to build partnerships among youth, families, caregivers, and professionals for the development of trauma-informed services.

Click here for a complete listing and description of NCTSN sites and contacts.

Please direct all media inquiries to info@nctsn.org.