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October 22, 2026
New Editorial Board member!
Starting in January 2027, Caitlin will begin service as a Consulting Editor for Child Maltreatment. As the official journal of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC), Child Maltreatment provides a rigorous, multidisciplinary perspective to address the problem of child abuse and neglect. Caitlin is looking forward to contributing to the mission of this important journal!
October 6, 2026
Research on children in military families highlighted in Military REACH
A recent study led by Caitlin examining trauma symptoms and self-blame among children in military families was showcased in the September Military REACH newsletter. This newsletter summarizes newly published studies related to the well-being of military families and distributes them to the Department of Defense's Office of Military Community and Family Policy. They rated the quality of the study as 'Commendable' across ratings of "Credible," "Contributory," and "Communicative" (details below).
Click here to read the full REACH Newsletter.
Or check out the full publication:
Rancher, C., Hanson, R. F., Sitton, M., Williams, L. M., Saunders, B. E., & Smith, D. W. (2026). Trauma symptoms and self-blame among children in military families exposed to violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 41(19-20), 7384-7404. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605261449186
September 28-29, 2026
Strategic planning and Project Support retreat
Caitlin came to Charleston to join the faculty at the National Crime Victims Center (NCVC) for a Strategic Planning meeting, which was also a great opportunity to meet with the Project Support team! The faculty retreat highlighted several wins for the NCVC - including the ongoing work of delivering services to families on the waitlist for trauma treatment. Proud of this team!
Pictured: Caitlin Rancher, Addi Pohl, Collin Palmer, Annie Ryder
September 24, 2026
Indirect exposure to mass violence associated with high rates of PTSD
Angie Moreland presented findings from surveys with 6 different communities that had experienced a public mass violence incident. Community members report high levels of distress even if they were not directly onsite during the incident (details below):
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Moreland, A. D., Rancher, C., Davies, F., Bottomley, J., Galea, S., Abba-Aji, M., Abdalla, S. M., Schmidt, M. G., Vena, J. E., & Kilpatrick, D. G. (2026, September). Posttraumatic stress disorder among adults in communities with mass violence incidents. Poster presentation, Annual Meeting for the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS), San Antonio, TX.
August 4, 2026
Headed to Head Start
Starting this Fall, Caitlin will be the new Associate Director of the Head Start Mental Health Consultation Program. This team provides consultation services and brief mental health interventions to the teachers, children, and families in the Head Start and Early Head Start classrooms throughout Charleston County. Caitlin will supervise the pre-doctoral Clinical Psychology interns working on the Head Start rotation at the Charleston Consoritum. Caitlin completed this rotation when she was an intern and is excited to get back in the classrooms!
August 3, 2026
Welcome Annie!
This month our team continues to grow as we welcome Annie Ryder! Annie is coming from the Clinical Child Psychology program at the University of Kansas and will be completing her pre-doctoral Clinical Psychology internship at the Charleston Consortium. She will be working with Dr. Rancher as her research preceptor. Annie will be participating in the evaluation of Project Support and exploring some of the implementation strategies needed to train paraprofessional providers to intervention fidelity and cultural competence. Looking forward to a great year! Welcome Annie!
July 31, 2026
Congratulations Melissa!
Melissa Sitton has officially completed her pre-doctoral Clinical Psychology Internship at the Charleston Consortium! Dr. Sitton is now off to pursue postdoctoral training at the Oregon Health & Sciences University. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with you Melissa! Major congratulations on all you have accomplished!! Wishing you the best in these next steps!!
July 21, 2026
Welcome Amina!
We are thrilled to welcome Amina Muhammad to the team! Amina will be taking on the position of Program Coordinator both for our randomized controlled trial evaluating Project Support as well as the coordinating duties of the study adapting Written Exposure Therapy for Adolescents with Dr. Emily Tilstra-Ferrell. Amina comes with impressive experience conducting mixed-methods research after completing her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
July 13, 2026
Sharing our work on social desirability, brief interventions, and mobile panels at the Violence Prevention Research Conference!
Big thanks to Kari Thomsen for organizing our symposium on Brief Interventions for Violence-Exposed Families! Caitlin presented preliminary findings on the telehealth pilot trial of Project Support for families waiting for trauma treatment.
Picture left: Caitlin Rancher, Katie Howell, Kari Thomsen, and Abby Arntz.
Melissa had some creative solutions to a FedEx mix up and did a great job presenting her work comparing social desirability and caregiver reports of child exposure to potentially traumatic events.
Portsmouth is also just lovely to visit in the summer!
June 18, 2026
See you in Baltimore!
Congratulations to Owen Winters and Melissa Sitton! Both had presentations accepted for presentation at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Annual Convention slated for this November, 2026 in Baltimore, MD! Save the date to learn more about (1) discrepancies in provider and caregiver reports of treatment barriers and (2) how hate crime mass violence incidents influence depression and posttraumatic stress.
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Winters, O., Asres, B. Y., Smith, D. W., Rancher, C. (2026, November). Discrepancies in Provider and Caregiver Reports of Treatment Barriers and Telehealth Barriers. Poster presentation, Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Annual Convention, Baltimore, MD.
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Sitton, M. J., Rancher, C., Smith, D. W., Moreland, A. D., Davies, F., & Kilpatrick, D. G. (2026, November). Hate crime mass violence incidents: Links to depression and posttraumatic stress in community members. Individual paper presentation, Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Annual Convention, Baltimore, MD.
June 15, 2026
Consuming more mass violence media increases worry and avoidance
New this week in JAMA Network Open, we examine whether media consumption after a mass violence incident (MVI) is associated with worry about future MVI victimization and avoidance behaviors. We found that most adults living in communities that have experienced a MVI report high levels of worry about MVI (66%) and avoid public places since the MVI (29%). Consuming more media coverage of the MVI was associated with greater odds of worry and avoidance. Findings highlight how media information on mass violence can influence subclinical levels of distress.
Read more:
Morgan, C. H., Davies, F., Robinson, L. E., Rancher, C., Kilpatrick, D., & Moreland, A. D. (2026). Media Consumption and Mass Violence–Related Distress in Communities Affected by Mass Violence. JAMA Network Open, 9(6), e2618226. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.18226
May 27, 2026
Self-blame partially explains the link between violence exposure and trauma symptoms
In a new publication in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence we present findings on how children's exposure to multiple types of violence may develop beliefs that there is something about them or their actions to blame for their experiences, which in turn, increases distress. Among a sample of military families referred to the Navy's Family Advocacy Program we found that the number of violence exposures and self-blame predicted higher levels of child-reported trauma symptoms. Self-blame mediated the association between violence exposures and trauma symptoms - particularly for girls.
Read more:
Rancher, C., Hanson, R. F., Sitton, M., Williams, L. M., Saunders, B. E., & Smith, D. W. (2026). Trauma symptoms and self-blame among children in military families exposed to violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 0(0), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605261449186
April 28, 2026
PCORI Grant to Address Adolescent Trauma Symptoms and Substance Use - FUNDED!
Our submission to the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to study effective ways to improve outcomes for adolescents who have experienced intentional trauma (i.e., physical or sexual assault) has been approved for funding!! Led by Drs. Rochelle Hanson and Mike McCart this study will compare two strategies to increase access to Risk Reduction through Family Therapy (RRFT) to address both trauma symptoms and substance use problems at Child Advocacy Centers across the United States.
Caitlin Rancher and Dan Smith will co-lead the Caregiver Patient Activation arm of this comparative effectiveness trial to equip caregivers with the confidence, information, and skills to best support their adolescent in treatment. This is a big project and will be a major team effort. We are thrilled to take on this important work!
More project details to come! Keep an eye on: the PCORI Portfolio website.
April 17, 2026
Caitlin and Owen present findings on perceived treatment barriers at the Brady/Lydiard Psychiatry Research Day!
Since Caitlin was in Charleston for the Project Support Workshop, she was able to join Owen Winters (right) in presenting a poster on perceived treatment barriers at the Brady/Lydiard Psychiatry Research Day at the Medical University of South Carolina. This project presents data from Caitlin's K99 Aim 1 exploration of barriers and facilitators to engaging caregivers on the waitlist for trauma treatment. We found that providers reported nearly twice as many barriers to mental health services as caregivers.
This visit also gave the team an opportunity to celebrate Owen and Blen's admittance to Clinical Psychology PhD programs! We are sorry to see them go and are so excited for this next stage of their careers!
April 15-17, 2026
Successful Project Support Workshop
Caitlin Rancher (right) and Renee McDonald (left, Co-creator of Project Support) led a 2-day workshop of the Project Support Positive Parenting module to a group of clinical psychology interns and paraprofessional providers. Thank you to the We are Sharing Hope team for letting us use your beautiful training space! These attendees were so skilled and engaged in the workshop, really another exciting stage of our work disseminating training in this evidence-based brief parenting program!
April 15, 2026
See you in Portsmouth, NH this summer!
Caitlin Rancher, Melissa Sitton, and Dan Smith are all headed to Portsmouth, New Hampshire this summer to present new research findings at the Violence Prevention Research Conference! Come learn about our ongoing work, including:
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Sitton, M., Rancher, C., Smith, D. W. (2026, July). Social desirability and caregiver reports of child exposure to potentially traumatic events. Poster presentation, Violence Prevention Research Conference, Portsmouth, NH.
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Rancher, C., Sitton, M., Winters, O., & Smith, D. W. (2026, July). Pilot trial of the Project Support Positive Parenting Module for families waiting for trauma treatment. In K. Thomsen (Chair), Examining Brief Interventions for Violence-Exposed Families Across Settings: Effectiveness in Preventing and Addressing Trauma-Related Outcomes and Considerations for Service Engagement. Symposium presentation, Violence Prevention Research Conference, Portsmouth, NH.
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Rancher, C., Sitton, M., & Smith, D. W. (2026, July). Prevalence of child trauma exposure reported by parents on mobile research panels. Individual paper presentation, Violence Prevention Research Conference, Portsmouth, NH.
March 19, 2026
Dr. Rancher passed her Oral Examination!
Dr. Caitlin Rancher successfully passed her Oral Examination and has been issued a South Carolina Psychology License (SC 1979). Caitlin has been licensed in New Mexico since April 2022, however, New Mexico is still not a member of PsyPact which limits the kinds of clinical activities she could perform. This SC license will allow Caitlin to continue to support the clinical services and training mission at the NCVC!
March 10, 2026
Congratulations to Owen!!
Great news! Owen Winters was accepted into the Clinical Psychology, Ph.D. program at Southern Methodist University to work with Dr. Austin Baldwin on factors that influence individuals' decisions to engage in health behaviors. Owen has demonstrated remarkable resilience in his pursuit of graduate training. We are so proud of you Owen!
February 13, 2026
Blen is headed to GSU!!
Congratulations to Blen!! Blen Asres was accepted into the Clinical Psychology, Ph.D. program at Georgia State University and will be working with Dr. Isha Metzger to enhance understanding of resilience among African Americans following trauma. We are so proud of this major accomplishment!
January 20, 2026
Welcome to Addi Pohl!
We are excited to announce that Addison Pohl will be joining our research team! Addi is a College of Charleston Honors Student and will be completing her Independent Study and Bachelor's Essay alongside Dr. Rancher and Dr. Grace Hubel. Addi will develop an independent project based on existing lab data and receive training in the Project Support intervention. Welcome Addi!
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