About

George Simpson Ake is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University. He is affiliated with the Center for Child and Family Health located at 1121 W. Chapel Hill St., Ste. 100, Durham, NC 27701. His professional focus includes Child & Family Mental Health and Community Psychiatry, contributing to the academic and clinical missions of Duke's Psychiatry department. Further details about his specific research interests, background, and key contributions are not provided in the available page text.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Medical emergency
• Nursing

Selected publications

• Determinants of Implementing Evidence-Based Trauma-Focused Interventions for Children and Youth: A Systematic Review

  UNC Libraries · 2025-12-19

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Policy and Practice Implementation During Rapid Social Change: An Introduction to the Special Section

  Global Implementation Research and Applications · 2022-11-05

  editorialOpen access1st author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Disseminating parent-child interaction therapy through the learning collaborative model on the adoption and implementation of an evidence-based treatment

  Children and Youth Services Review · 2019-03-23 · 8 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Determinants of Implementing Evidence-Based Trauma-Focused Interventions for Children and Youth: A Systematic Review

  Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research · 2019-12-07 · 66 citations

  reviewOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Reconsidering Our Domestic Violence System

  North Carolina Medical Journal · 2018-03-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Children's exposure to domestic violence is well established as an adverse childhood experience (ACE). Much is known about the impact of this exposure, but efforts to ameliorate its effects are too often unsuccessful. Reconsidering our response requires a candid assessment of whether convening large and disparate systems leads to the best outcome.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Pilot to policy: statewide dissemination and implementation of evidence-based treatment for traumatized youth

  BMC Health Services Research · 2018-07-28 · 51 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: A model for statewide dissemination of evidence-based treatment (EBT) for traumatized youth was piloted and taken to scale across North Carolina (NC). This article describes the implementation platform developed, piloted, and evaluated by the NC Child Treatment Program to train agency providers in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy using the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress Learning Collaborative (LC) Model on Adoption & Implementation of EBTs. This type of LC incorporates adult learning principles to enhance clinical skills development as part of training and many key implementation science strategies while working with agencies and clinicians to implement and sustain the new practice. METHODS: Clinicians (n = 124) from northeastern NC were enrolled in one of two TF-CBT LCs that lasted 12 months each. During the LC clinicians were expected to take at least two clients through TF-CBT treatment with fidelity and outcomes monitoring by trainers who offered consultation by phone and during trainings. Participating clinicians initiated treatment with 281 clients. The relationship of clinician and client characteristics to treatment fidelity and outcomes was examined using hierarchical linear regression. RESULTS: One hundred eleven clinicians completed general training on trauma assessment batteries and TF-CBT. Sixty-five clinicians met all mastery and fidelity requirements to meet roster criteria. One hundred fifty-six (55%) clients had fidelity-monitored assessment and TF-CBT. Child externalizing, internalizing, and post-traumatic stress symptoms, as well as parent distress levels, decreased significantly with treatment fidelity moderating child PTSD outcomes. Since this pilot, 11 additional cohorts of TF-CBT providers have been trained to these roster criteria. CONCLUSION: Scaling up or outcomes-oriented implementation appears best accomplished when training incorporates: 1) practice-based learning, 2) fidelity coaching, 3) clinical assessment and outcomes-oriented treatment, 4) organizational skill-building to address barriers for agencies, and 5) linking clients to trained clinicians via an online provider roster. Demonstrating clinician performance and client outcomes in this pilot and subsequent cohorts led to legislative support for dissemination of a service array of EBTs by the NC Child Treatment Program.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Trauma Screening in Child Welfare: Lessons Learned from Five States

  Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma · 2017-06-13 · 46 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Working with Resource Parents for Trauma-Informed Foster Care

  2017-10-25 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Domestic Violence and Families: Trauma-Focused Treatment Options

  North Carolina Medical Journal · 2016-11-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Trauma-Informed Care for Children in the Child Welfare System

  Child Maltreatment · 2015-11-23 · 85 citations

  articleSenior author

  An essential but often overlooked component to promoting trauma-informed care within the child welfare system is educating and empowering foster, adoptive, and kinship caregivers (resource parents) with a trauma-informed perspective to use in their parenting as well as when advocating for services for their child. In this first evaluation of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network's trauma-informed parenting workshop (Caring for Children who Have Experienced Trauma, also known as the Resource Parent Curriculum), participant acceptance and satisfaction and changes in caregiver knowledge and beliefs related to trauma-informed parenting were examined. Data from 159 ethnically diverse resource parents were collected before and after they participated in the workshop. Results demonstrate that kinship and nonkinship caregivers showed significant increases in their knowledge of trauma-informed parenting and their perceived self-efficacy parenting a child who experienced trauma. Nonkinship caregivers increased on their willingness to tolerate difficult child behaviors, whereas kinship caregivers did not show a significant change. Participants also demonstrated high levels of satisfaction with the workshop. Although these preliminary results are important as the first empirical study supporting the workshop's effectiveness, the limitations of this study and the directions for future research are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kelly Sullivan

  19 shared

• Lisa Amaya‐Jackson

  Duke Medical Center

  8 shared

• Kathryn J. Murray

  University of Utah

  7 shared

• Karen Appleyard Carmody

  Trinity College

  6 shared

• Robert A. Murphy

  University of Oxford

  6 shared

• Erika Wray

  Duke University

  4 shared

• Darden White

  Duke University

  4 shared

• Robin H. Gurwitch

  4 shared