TLC's History
Founded in
1990 by William Steele, PsyD, MSW, The National Institute for Trauma and Loss
in Children, TLC’s mission is
twofold: to create environments
where traumatized children can flourish through trauma informed education,
training, strategies and consultation and to bring out the best in every
traumatized child by providing everyone in the position to help with evidence
based, trauma specific intervention programs, strategies, referral services and
the tools needed to have a profound impact on the future life of that
traumatized child. Today
over 5,000 TLC Certified Trauma and Loss School Specialists and Clinical
Specialists are providing TLC’s evidence based programs and interventions to
thousands of children daily in schools and agency settings across the country.
TLC
Certified Specialists have provided critical interventions the past twenty
years following numerous critical incidents covered by national and worldwide
media such as the Gulf War, bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma, 9/11,
hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the 2009 killings of staff in school in Iowa and
Texas. However, every day thousands of children are traumatized by violent acts
and also non-violent trauma inducing incidents such as car fatalities, house
fires, critical injuries, sudden death, which rarely receive media attention
yet TLC is called for help. Over the years TLC has consulted with hundreds of school districts and agencies (click to view a partial listing of
schools and
organizations) regarding trauma’s impact on learning and behavior and the use of
those TLC evidence based
strategies found to help victims
become resilient thrivers. TLC’s
I Feel
Better Now Program, for example, is the only school based, evidenced based
program of its kind available for traumatized children grades one through six
and its
Structural Sensory Interventions
for Children, Adolescents and Parents (SITCAP) model has been written about
in various journals and publications (
click here for listing).
Most
importantly, TLC’s twenty year history of emphasizing the importance of
relating to childhood trauma as an experience versus a diagnostic category is
now supported by the proposed
2009 Developmental Trauma Disorder which is
designed to “capture the reality of clinical presentations
(traumatic developmental
life experiences) of children …
(as) the diagnosis of PTSD does not adequately capture the symptoms of
children…”
TLC’s future
has now been greatly enhanced by our recent move to Starr Commonwealth, an
international leader in transformational programs for children, families,
schools and communities (
click here to visit the Starr website). Founded in 1913,
Starr’s treatment philosophy is rooted in seeing the good in every child, which
serves as the guiding principle in it s strength based approach. Combining TLC
trauma informed practices with Starr’s strength based practices will not only
enhance our efforts to bring out the best in every child, they will also help
to bring out the best in all of us in the position to help traumatized children
and adolescents and the environments in which they struggle to survive.