At the Attachment & Trauma Network, it is our mission to:
Support families parenting children with trauma and/or attachment issues through education, mentoring, advocacy, and local/regional resources, and to develop awareness of trauma and attachment-related issues in all child centered environments (schools, doctors offices, foster/adopt community, legislative).
Results: 2012 has been a busy year as we are using our Pepsi Refresh grant to launch our ATN Learning Center in June. We established a scholarship fund that allows families in crisis who are facing financial challenges to be able to take full advantage of our online support and new peer mentoring program. Donors are eagerly contributing to help other families join.
Target demographics: Parents of traumatized children and those with attachment disorders; professionals (therapists, social workers and others) who work with traumatized children and those with attachment disorders.
Direct beneficiaries per year: 700
Geographic areas served: nationwide
Programs: ATN has active online support groups, a peer mentoring program, bi-monthly newsletter, online Learning Center, crisis phone line, resource database and more.
I adopted an extremely traumatized 9 yr old. Very, very few people understand what it is like to live with and parent such a chid. Even many therapists and professionals who were supposedly trained to help these kids, don't understand our kids, or the chaos they bring to our families. When you have a child who causes so much chaos, who needs to be watched 24/7, the result is a very isolated family. The attachment-trauma-network puts us in contact with other parents who understand our very unique issues. I know I for one feel a bit less isolated. The other major issue that is met here more than other places is finding resources for our kids very specialized needs. The combined experience of the parents ferreting out this information is greater than any other place I have found.
