RESILIENCE COALITION MEMBER
Attachment & Trauma Network
ORGANIZATION
The Attachment & Trauma Network has been the VOICE for traumatized children and their families since 1995. Through our mission of Support – Education – Advocacy, we seek to improve the lives of children impacted by early childhood trauma, abuse and neglect, and prenatal exposures in their families, schools and communities.
We believe that trauma-informed, attachment-focused therapy and teaching parents therapeutic parenting strategies are significant factors in helping our children overcome their early traumas and build resiliency and healthy relationships.
We believe that trauma-informed schools are the best educational environment for all children, but especially the significant population of children impacted by Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
Empowering Trauma-Informed Families, Schools, and Communities
It is our mission to promote healing of children impacted by trauma through supporting their families, schools, and communities.
NOTABLE INITIATIVES
Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools Conference
Largest Gathering of Trauma-Informed Educators
Building Resilience and Improving Children’s Outcomes
FEBRUARY 20-25, 2022
The Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools Conference is designed primarily for educators to learn the strategies and implementation of trauma-informed practices in education. The primary focus is to ensure that educators leave with an understanding of how early and complex trauma impacts children’s ability to learn and what school systems and educators can do to improve these children’s outcomes.
All who are concerned about helping to address the needs of traumatized children in schools and community are encouraged to join us. Parents and other people working closely with traumatized children will find many of the workshops helpful.
Trauma-Sensitive Schools Think Tank
ATN welcomes teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals and support staff, as well as any professional working with school-aged children through a Trauma-Informed lens, to become a contributing member to the TSS Think Tank, a private Facebook group. The purpose of this group is to discuss and share knowledge about trauma sensitive school practices and the need for all schools to become fully Trauma-Informed.
ATTACHMENT & TRAUMA NETWORK PROGRAMS
Led by Trauma-Informed Educators, Devoted to Creating School-wide Trauma-Sensitive Reform
ATN’s Trauma-Sensitive Schools Initiative is devoted to creating school-wide trauma-sensitive reform. Our experienced educators and those with expertise in early childhood trauma are working together to develop Professional Development Programs For Educators to help them:
- Understand the effects of early childhood trauma and/or separation on neurobiological development.
- Learn how early trauma impacts learning and behavior.
- Discover the motivation behind students’ behaviors by using Trauma-Informed Behavioral Assessments.
- Learn instructional strategies that help to heal the neurobiological impact of early childhood trauma.
- Explore classroom strategies that develop resiliency and improve learning outcomes for ALL children.
- Develop Trauma-Sensitive school-wide approaches to discipline.
Empowering Trauma-Sensitive Parents, Caregivers, and Families
Therapeutic Parenting is the term used to describe the type of high structure/high nurture intentional parenting that fosters the feelings of safety and connectedness so that a traumatized child can begin to heal and attach. Learning to parent therapeutically is the single most important thing you can do to help your traumatized/attachment-disordered child.
Building Resilience & Improving Children’s Outcomes
The Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools Conference is designed primarily for educators to learn the strategies and implementation of trauma-informed practices in education. Parents and other people working closely with traumatized children will find many of the workshops helpful. All who are concerned about helping to address the needs of traumatized children in schools and community are encouraged to join us. The primary focus is to ensure that educators leave with an understanding of how early and complex trauma impacts children’s ability to learn and what school systems and educators can do to improve these children’s outcomes.
ATTACHMENT & TRAUMA NETWORK LEADERSHIP
Julie Beem, MBA
Executive Director
Julie Beem has been the Executive Director of the Attachment & Trauma Network since 2009 and an active member and volunteer since 2005. Julie lives in the Atlanta area and is the mom to four and grandmother to 2. Her youngest daughter, adopted internationally more than 20 years ago was the reason she found support and education from the other parents at ATN.
Under Julie’s leadership, ATN has grown to reach families, schools and communities around the world. In 2016 ATN was given an Angel in Adoption award to honor the organization’s contributions to adoptive families across the US. Julie is a frequent speaker at adoption/foster parenting conferences as well as events focused on early childhood trauma. Julie’s formal background is in marketing, communications and business. Her true passion is making life easier for children impacted by trauma and the families who love them. Paying it forward has become the cornerstone of Julie’s work through ATN.
Stephanie Garde, JD
Operations Manager
Stephanie Garde volunteered with ATN for 9 years and was a Board Member before becoming the Operations Manager in 2018. She and her husband are parents to two sons, one by adoption and one by birth. Their experience with trauma and attachment issues started when they adopted a 5 year old boy from state custody in 1999. Two years of struggle later, Stephanie saw a Law and Order episode that explained her son’s behaviors. Using the internet and this new term “attachment,” the Garde family started on the journey to heal. With the help of trauma-sensitive attachment-focused therapy, their son is now 25. While he continues to struggle with the effects of early childhood trauma and neglect, he has graduated from high school and completed a vocational training program at a community college. He is living independently and works full-time.
Taneesha Thomas, MEd
BOARD MEMBER
An educator with a passion for developing trauma-informed leaders, Taneesha is the CEO and Founder of Focused Minds Education Group in Atlanta, GA. Taneesha’s professional journey has taken her from high school English teacher to a professional development and leadership facilitator to owning a firm that supports districts and organizations nationwide to improve climate and culture through a culturally responsive lens, using trauma-informed practices. She is a passionate mental health advocate, seeking to create positive climates and cultures that promote student wellness and resilience.
Melissa Sadin, EdD
Schools Program Advisor
Melissa is a mother to two sons (one adopted and one bio), a wife, and a life long educator. She began her career as a high school special education teacher working in a self-contained classroom for emotionally challenged young adults. After twelve years in classrooms in all grades 2-12, she became an administrator. During her years serving as an administrator she worked in elementary schools and an alternative school for behaviorally challenged children in grades K-12. She was a behavior modification specialist who provided workshops across the state on meeting the needs of students with challenging behaviors.
In 2001, Melissa and her husband adopted a three-year-old boy from a Bulgarian Orphanage. It was this brave, hurting boy who taught Melissa the value of relationships and the limitations inherent in behavior modification. In searching for ways to heal her son, she began a journey that continues today.
Ginger Healy, MSW, LCSW
Program Director
Ginger Healy received her master’s degree in social work from UNLV in 1999 and began practicing as a licensed clinical social worker in 2001. She has worked as a social worker in the field of child and family services and hospital trauma for several years until she adopted her son from Romania. At that point she started working for Children’s House International Adoption Agency for the next 15 years serving as the social service supervisor.
In 2016 she was awarded The Angels in Adoption Award and met Julie Beem a fellow awardee. She was so impressed that when an opportunity to work for The Attachment and Trauma Network came up she jumped in head first. She is married with four children and her greatest teachers about developmental trauma and special needs have been her children.