Certified Clinical Trauma Specialist -

Prenatal Trauma

Course Description

Continuing Education Hours: 20

This certification course is comprised of the Arizona Trauma Institute 2020 Prenatal Exposure Conference and the Prenatal Trauma: Raising Children Who Have Been Exposed to Substances In-Utero training. The Conference is designed to introduce and enhance the clinical care professional's understanding and comprehension of the impact of in-utero exposure to substances, trauma, and toxic stress on neurodevelopment, sensory needs, and attachment with children. You will recognize behaviors, emotions, and thinking that are a result of prenatal exposure and understand how to approach these biological challenges in the most effective and reliable ways. Completing this conference will arm you with ways to help children who have been exposed in-utero through a well-being and whole person approach that considers sensory integration, understanding behavior, and ways to effectively discipline, and needs unique to these children. The following Prenatal Trauma: Raising Children who Have Been Exposed to Substances In-Utero training is designed to help participants develop a better understanding and comprehension of the impact of in-utero substance exposure on neurodevelopment, sensory needs, and attachment with children. Learn ways to help children who have been exposed in-utero through caring for their whole needs, such as sensory integration, understanding behavior and ways to effectively discipline, and needs unique to these children.

Learning Objectives


  • How trauma is defined
  • The changes in the body because of material stress and adversity
  • Changes in the fetus because of the changing environment of the mother
  • The teratogen effect of changes in the mother’s biology
  • Prevalence of trauma; types of trauma
  • Substance exposure effects on the fetus
  • Parent-child relationship; attachment and bonding
  • Parent with an SUD and trauma: effects on parenting
  • Misconceptions about SEN
  • Cortisol stress hormones and trauma
  • Importance of Early Intervention for SEN
  • Soothing the fussy SEN baby
  • Parents self-regulation, trauma and SUD
  • Sensory seeking or avoiding due to SEN
  • Respite for moms and caregivers
  • You will gain an understanding of how epigenetics work in pregnancy
  • You will better understand how the hormones of the Mother during pregnancy impact the infant’s Amygdala and neurochemistry.
  • You will be aware of the specific challenges of infant growth in a dysregulated pre-natal environment.
  • Gender specific trauma for women
  • Familial, historical trauma effects on women of childbearing age
  • Pathway from trauma exposure to SUD for women of childbearing age
  • The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study
  • Birth plan, expectations, family support, resources
  • Expectant women with SUD while incarcerated
  • Supporting mothers’ choice of care, provider, support
  • Vulnerable families, lack of prenatal care, nutrition, safe home
  • First or subsequent child? First or subsequent SEN child?
  • Care for mother after childbirth; complications when SUD and trauma present
  • Re-traumatization of new mothers by removal of SEN baby
  • Mothers ability to tolerate a fussy baby and provide appropriate care
  • Risk of relapse by mother after sobriety while pregnant
  • Encouraging healthy bonding by appropriate support for mother
  • Managing the contrast between client families and the workers own
  • Babies are evocative; SEN newborns may trigger strong feelings in staff
  • Recognizing vicarious trauma in ourselves
  • Building a vicarious trauma informed team
  • Setting aside our bias in order to serve vulnerable families
  • Tools for self-care to prevent burnout
  • Need for mature self-regulating people to support mothers with their own history of trauma, toxic stress and adversity
  • Community action and compassion
  • Educational system compassion and action
  • The true nature of intergenerational trauma
  • Comparative look at impact of marijuana, cocaine, alcohol and methamphetamine in-utero exposure
  • Understanding the impact of in-utero exposure has on self-regulation
  • Review neuro-deficits on children exposed in-utero
  • Review sensory integration needs of children exposed in-utero
  • Review behavioral concerns associated with in-utero exposure
  • Understanding the risk factors of children exposed to substances in-utero
  • Understand cognitive challenges
  • Building behavioral resilience
  • Building self-regulation
  • Interactive practice in working with/parenting children with in-utero substance exposure


Camea Peca, Ph.D., MSc, CFTP, CCTS-I

Camea has spent over 15 years working with Children and Families in a vast range of settings both locally and abroad. After completing a Bachelor of Science at ASU, Camea spent 10 years abroad studying and working. During this time, she completed a MSc in Psychoanalytic Development Psychology at the Anna Freud Center/University College London including a dissertation in Sensory Integration Therapy and Tactile and Vestibular Processing Disorder. During this training Camea was trained by leaders in attachment and infant development including Dr. Peter Fonagy and Mary Target. As a part of this training Camea had the chance to work with the Child Center for Mental Health and participating in specialty training with leaders in the expressive arts as well as Sir Richard Bowlby, Dr. Dan Hughes, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Dr. Bruce Perry, and many others. She completed clinical training and supervision in the Expressive Arts with Dr. Margot Sunderland and the Helping Where It Hurts program which puts expressive arts therapists in inner city London schools. Professionally Camea has worked in a variety of settings including adolescent shelters, inpatient psychiatric units, schools and specialty projects targeting physical and sexualized trauma. For over two years Camea has worked as a Trauma Therapist in a local specialty service targeting children and families that have experienced sexual abuse. Camea specializes in work with very young children and their families and has extensive experience with early developmental trauma and attachment based therapy using the expressive arts and sensory based modalities. Camea uses her eclectic and wide range of international training and clinical experience to deliver dynamic and experiential training.

Robert Rhoton Psy D., LPC, D.A.A.E.T.S.

Dr. Robert Rhoton, CEO of Arizona Trauma Institute and President at the Trauma Institute International possesses a rich history of experience in the mental health field. Dr. Rhoton has supervised multiple outpatient clinics, juvenile justice programs, and intensive outpatient substance abuse programs for adolescents, day treatment programs for youth and children, adult offender programs and child and family therapeutic services. Dr. Rhoton served as president of the Arizona Trauma Therapy Network from 2010 through 2012. Dr. Rhoton was a Professor at Ottawa University in the Behavioral Sciences and Counseling Department whose primary interests were training counselors to work with traumagenic family dynamics, child and family trauma, and non-egoic models of treatment. Dr. Rhoton is a Diplomate of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and collaborates and consults with numerous Arizona agencies fine tuning their understanding of trauma and the impact of developmental trauma on the individual and family. Dr. Rhoton works internationally with organizations to improve the delivery of trauma treatment services.

Roderick Logan, D.PTh., CCTS, CFTP, FFTT

Dr. Roderick Logan believes and his life’s work reflects that human suffering is not a fate to be borne, but a challenge to be overcome. He is a certified trauma specialist and works routinely with foster and adoptive parents, grieving families dealing with loss, and caregivers seeking to become trauma informed. He holds a Master’s in Biblical Counseling and a Doctorate in Practical Theology. His trauma certifications CFTP and CCTSF are with ATI and IATP. Additionally, Dr. Logan is an Ordained Minister. At the heart, Roderick is a teacher fighting ignorance and apathy; an information specialist to whom parents and professionals often look to for insight, a spiritual perspective, and a pragmatic point-of-view. His array of professional services include educator, counselor, coach, mentor, and advocate. Since 1981, Dr. Logan’s talents have found expression in industries of transportation, broadcasting, state government, mega-church, and child and family welfare. Whether in the classroom, small group, or private session, Roderick’s intention is to create a safe holding environment from which others can regulate and begin showing up for their own rescue. Roderick and his wife, Melody, have been married for 38 years. Together they raised two sons and a daughter and have eight grandchildren. Among family and friends Roderick is known as, “the man in a rowboat rowing backwards into the future.”

Enrollment Pricing


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