About

The Texas Childhood Trauma Research Network (TX-CTRN) is a research initiative of the Texas Child Mental Healthcare Consortium (TCMHCC) created by the 86th Texas Legislature in 2021 to leverage the expertise and capacity of the health-related institutions of higher education to address urgent mental health challenges and improve the mental healthcare for children and adolescents across Texas.

The goal of TX-CTRN is to establish a participant registry of children and adolescents who have experienced a traumatic event in an effort to: 1) elucidate the sequelae of trauma during childhood, 2) Improve mental health services available to address the effects of youth trauma, and 3) identify regional and statewide service delivery gaps to inform policy makers in order to improve the mental health of youth in Texas. TX-CTRN is comprised of a central Network Hub that oversees the research activities of teams from the 12 participating health research institutions, i.e., Network Nodes, each of which support designated regions.

The TX-CTRN Hub is led by Dr. Charles Nemeroff at the UT Austin Dell Medical School and Dr. Karen Wagner at University of Texas Medical Branch. TX-CTRN is working to identify the mental health outcomes of acute and chronic trauma for children and adolescents, identify risk and protective factors, and identify best practices to improve the mental health of children and adolescents in Texas who have experienced trauma.   

Questions?
Contact: texasctrn@austin.utexas.edu