Keeping it (inter)professional: A Journey through (and toward) Trauma-Informed & Neuro- Affirming Service, Scholarship, Advocacy, & Mentorship

With the goal of helping young people (and their caregivers) grow up to be informed, empowered and independent people who will live fulfilling lives while managing what are often lifelong neurobiological health conditions, clinical psychologist Jason Fogler’s journey has taken him through school and community mental health settings, a rigorous T-32 focused on clinical research in posttraumatic stress disorders, private practice, and ultimately Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School and the wider communities of the Association of University Centers on Disability (AUCD) and Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (SDBP).  In all of these spaces, he learned the value and necessity of interprofessional collaboration for working through deeply challenging questions of co-occurring psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders, more often than not shaped by adverse experiences and toxic stress.  His trauma-informed and neuro-affirming approach to clinical work, scholarship, and now advocacy and leadership, draws heavily from third- wave cognitive behavioral therapies like Motivational Interviewing and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy; Stephen Finn’s Therapeutic Assessment; and stage theories of cognitive and psychosocial development.