Doug Pickens and In The Moment Specialized Supports have been showing up in some interesting places this fall.

Doug Pickens, Director of Specialized Services, ARC Human was a speaker at the 2011 ARC National Conference held this September in Denver, CO.  Doug presented along Dr Karen Harvey, Associate Ex. Dir. of Quality Supports, The Arc Baltimore, MD.  The title of their presentation was Solving the Puzzle:  Behavior, Trauma & Recovery.

Together they were able to discuss how common it is for people with intellectual disabilities to experience trauma in their lives, which can result in behavioral issues. They shared what techniques and therapies works best to address this issue.  It was so exciting to hear from two chapters of The Arc who are using proactive interventions and strategies that empower individuals to learn new ways of coping with life long and often untreated issues.  They contrasted how the old model of control by using constraints no longer works and that by using current best practice and diagnostically driven supports grounded in strong therapeutic principles they are partnering with people to enable them to understand what it is to feel safe and be supported in ways which help them begin to heal and to experience.

Then the next week, Doug presented at Building Bridges-2011 Aging/Intellectual Disabilities Conference, which is designed for people who are part of the Aging Network and the Intellectual Disability System on September 21, 2011 in Grantville, PA He was asked to present a double session titled Using Trauma Informed Care as a Model for Building a New Specialized Service.

In his two part session Doug described the In The Moment Specialized Supports (ITM Specialized Supports) program that was developed to support persons with IDD and who struggle with significant and complex mental health disorders. Many of these same persons have also experienced substantial trauma or adverse experiences that continue to impact them. These persons are often diagnosed with or present features found in Axis II mental health disorders. The ITM Specialized Supports program offers very detailed structured supports for persons who have not been successful in traditional IDD programs. The supports are diagnostically driven through the Team Driven format and are grounded in strong therapeutic principles using Trauma Informed Care.

Doug has also been collaborating all fall with the Clearfield Jefferson MH/MR/CYFS by facilitating and presenting a nine week curriculum based upon the best practices found in using Trauma Informed Care across all services offered. The shared goal is to begin the process of changing the culture found in all the agencies in the County to one that understands and supports the devastating effects of trauma found in most of the people they support and recognizing how deeply such high frequencies of trauma can begin to adversely effect their ability do their jobs in the best way possible.