Bruce Perry – Child Trauma Academy
Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D. is an American psychiatrist, currently the Senior Fellow of the ChildTrauma Academy in Houston, Texas and an Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. A clinician and researcher in children’s mental health and the neurosciences, from 1993-2001 he was the Thomas S. Trammell Research Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and Chief of Psychiatry at Texas Children’s Hospital. He also serves as Senior Consultant to the Alberta Minister of Children and Youth Services in Alberta, Canada. Dr, Perry is also a Senior Fellow at the Berry Street Childhood Institute in Melbourne, Australia.
About ChildTrauma Academy:
The ChildTrauma Academy (CTA) is a not-for-profit organization based in Houston, Texas working to improve the lives of high-risk children through direct service, research and education.
A major activity of the CTA is to translate emerging findings about the human brain and child development into practical implications for the ways we nurture, protect, enrich, educate and heal children. The “translational neuroscience” work of the CTA has resulted in a range of innovative programs in therapeutic, child protection and educational systems.
The CTA is a Community of Practice. Etienne Wenger, a leading social learning theorist, defines communities of practice as groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. This model has been discussed as optimal for promoting social change in our current complex world. The CTA works to create collaborative working relationships between organizations and individuals to most effectively promote positive change for children.
The CTA started as a typical center of excellence in an academic setting, initially at The University of Chicago and later at Baylor College of Medicine. Over time however, it was clear that the problems of abuse and neglect in children were much more complex and multi-dimensional in ways that our medical model was unable to address.
A medical school centered work group investigating and solving physiological problems in humans makes sense. Solving problems which involve parenting, education, the law, child protection systems, mental health, law enforcement and a host of related systems across every professional discipline is more challenging. In response to this challenge we have created a collaborative, interdisciplinary virtual Center of Excellence, The ChildTrauma Academy.
Schools can request a speaker, or staff can register for a live presentation (most are based in the United States). There is a newsletter staff can sign up for, in order to learn more about dealing with trauma.
The Neurosequential Model in Education (NME) brings The ChildTrauma Academy’s neurodevelopmental and trauma-informed approach to the classroom. Our goal is to educate faculty and students in basic concepts of neurosequential development and how to apply this knowledge to the teaching and learning process. There is training available, and an upcoming boot camp in Banff (June 2018). There is a cost to the program.
Books by the author:
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, 2006 publication – stories of trauma and transformation
Born for Love, 2010 publication co-authored with M. Sazalavitz- focus on empathy
Conscious Discipline
Conscious Discipline is a trauma informed program designed to support children with social emotional learning. There is some good points to this program, but there is some caution, as adults should be in charge of students emotions. This program might have some aspects where it is assumed if you teach the student they should be able to manage themselves, which is not always developmentally appropriate.