CTAC Hosts Master Clinician Series - Sheree Toth, Ph.D.
The Center on Trauma and Children (CTAC) hosted a Master Clinician Round Table on the topic “Treating Traumatized Children and Families: Clinical Perspectives” on Tuesday, October 4. This year’s featured speaker was Sheree Toth, executive director of Mt. Hope Family Center and Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Rochester, New York. Mt. Hope Family Center is a translational research center dedicated to helping children and families improve their lives and build strong, healthy relationships.
Dr. Toth discussed intervention programs offered by Mt. Hope in the areas of family functioning, parenting, interpersonal relationships, conflict resolution, and coping with violence. She emphasized the importance of using evidence-based practices in programs and clinical interventions, and provided insight into how to select and evaluate the most efficacious evidence-based practices for one’s client population. There were myriad similarities between Mt. Hope and CTAC in client population and programs offered, and CTAC clinicians engaged Dr. Toth in a vigorous discussion throughout the round table.
Dr. Toth's research is guided by a developmental psychopathology perspective emphasizing the interplay between normal and atypical development and addresses the transactions between ecological contexts and development. Her empirical work has examined factors contributing to maladjustment in children who have been physically or sexually abused, or neglected. Dr. Toth is also committed to applying research findings to real world settings in order to bridge the gap between research and clinical practice. In particular, she has conducted a number of randomized clinical trials with maltreated children and with offspring of depressed mothers that have utilized relationally-based methods of intervention, including Child-Parent Psychotherapy and Interpersonal Psychotherapy.
The Center on Trauma and Children seeks to answer the tough questions asked by distressed children everywhere. It is our mission to promote safety, health and well-being in children exposed to all types of trauma.