The Thriving Kids Initiative
NCA helps kids thrive and communities shine with nationwide projects that develop, grow, and increase access to mental health treatments that reduce the lifelong effects of trauma caused by abuse. With your help, our Thriving Kids Initiative helps kids go back to being kids.
How we help kids thrive
Child abuse can cause lifelong damage to children, families, and communities. But we can prevent these outcomes, especially when children receive science-backed mental health services and support early on. Here’s the evidence for the healing Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) provide to more than 200,000 kids each year.
Telehealth and kids
NCA pioneers telehealth projects to help CACs deliver high-quality mental healthcare remotely through technology, ensuring better access to consistent therapy services for kids in rural and underserved areas, kids or therapists home sick, or even as an alternative appointment for those times when life gets in the way.
Best of all, telehealth is just as effective as in-person therapy: in a pilot study, 97% of kids who completed a course of telehealth therapy no longer had PTSD afterward. Watch a video about how the growing availability of CAC telehealth services can help you and your family get effective services more easily, and see resources and more for families and therapists.
Healing trauma: what works?
“Evidence-Based Treatments” and “Trauma-Informed Care”—what does it all mean? Here are some resources from NCA and Northeast Regional CAC to demystify the tools CACs use to heal kids. Find versions for parents and other caregivers, for law enforcement and child welfare partners, and for CAC staff.
When kids hurt kids
Every year, 20-25% of the cases CACs handle involved a child acting out sexually against another child. Yet with proper treatment, as many as 98% of children stop these problematic sexual behaviors. Here’s a wealth of resources for CACs on how to serve victims while addressing children and youth with problematic sexual behaviors, with free brochures, online trainings, and best practice documents.
Our Public Health Service (PHS) policy
To comply with federal Public Health Service regulations regarding objectivity in research and conflicts of interest, NCA, a recipient of a PHS-funded grant, has developed a PHS policy available below.