About Us
Dr. Christopher Branson (Principal)
Dr. Branson is a licensed psychologist and nationally-recognized expert in trauma-informed practice for the juvenile justice system. Since 2012, he has provided consultation to juvenile justice agencies in 12 states and trained over 1,500 professionals in probation, detention/corrections, court, and diversion program settings. He also consults for several national organizations, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Council of Juvenile Justice Administrators, the National Center on Mental Health & Juvenile Justice, and the US Department of Justice. He formerly served on the New York City Juvenile Justice Oversight Board and co-chaired the National Child Traumatic Stress Network's Juvenile Justice Committee.
Dr. Branson has 14 years of juvenile justice experience as a therapist, researcher, and consultant. He began his career at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in Harlem, where he provided mental health evaluations and evidence-based treatment to youth and families involved with the juvenile justice system. Alarmed by the high rates of trauma reported by his clients, Dr. Branson shifted his focus to increasing access to effective treatment for youth with traumatic stress. He served as Co-Principal Investigator for a 4-year federally-funded project to implement trauma-informed care in the NYC Department of Probation, Rikers Island, two diversion programs, and a drug treatment court.
In 2014, he joined the faculty of the New York University School of Medicine, where he led the first-ever NIMH-funded study of trauma-informed care in the juvenile justice system. He served as Co-Investigator on a subsequent SAMHSA-funded project to spread trauma-informed care through all of NYC's juvenile detention facilities. In 2019, Dr. Branson left academia and launched C. Branson Consulting in order to focus on working directly with county and state juvenile justice agencies on implementing trauma-informed practices. His other areas of expertise include work-related traumatic stress in juvenile justice professionals, implementation science, program evaluation, and adolescent substance abuse.