Durbin, Capito Urge HHS To Implement Childhood Trauma Task Force They Enacted In 2018

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) today urged the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to accelerate implementation of the Interagency Task Force on Trauma-Informed Care, a provision authored by both Senators that was passed into law in October 2018 as part of the federal opioid response. The bipartisan provision established a Task Force of federal agencies to set a national strategy to address childhood trauma and to promote trauma-informed care across federal grant programs. The Department has missed three key deadlines for implementation and creation of the Task Force.

“In fact, particularly now—amid a pandemic, economic challenges, and national conversation on racial injustice, all of which have inflamed the very issues of trauma that the Task Force should address—the failure to submit this plan on time raises concerns,” the Senators wrote. “Having a comprehensive federal plan can help communities that have experienced trauma by coordinating agency activities, engaging stakeholders and the public, and identifying best practices for dissemination. However, we have been discouraged by the lack of meaningful progress or substantive engagement in the Task Force’s statutory duties. Millions of children and families that have experienced trauma are waiting for the federal government to step up and provide this framework … Helping children and families cope with traumatic experiences can help uplift our communities and improve employment, health, and academic outcomes.”

After missing two initial statutory deadlines in 2018 and 2019 to appoint the Task Force’s membership and hold its first meeting, the federal Task Force was supposed to have submitted to Congress (as well as the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Labor, Interior, and Justice) an Operating Plan for the Task Force’s activities, which was October 24, 2020.

Decades of research have established that exposure to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)—such as witnessing violence or parental drug overdose—can cause stress on the developing brain and, if left unaddressed, may be linked to long-term negative health, academic, and societal outcomes. To address these traumatic experiences, there are effective strategies and interventions that can help screen and support children to help them cope and build resilience. However, there remain major gaps in identifying and supporting such children and families with the right interventions and with trained employees from health care, education, or social services settings.

Full text of the letter is available here and below:

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