Examining the effectiveness of early intervention to create trauma-informed school environments

Abstract

Trauma-Informed Elementary Schools (TIES) is a classroom-level intervention program designed to bring trauma-informed services to early elementary. The initial results from the TIES’s pilot study were promising. The current study examined the effectiveness of the TIES program by extending the pilot evaluation with an improved study design and sample size. The quality of trauma-informed classroom interaction was measured using the CLASS (Classroom Assessment Scoring System) at the beginning of the school year and the end of the school year. Analyses compared TIES classrooms and non-TIES classrooms using all data (74 classrooms) and a subset of focused data (42 classrooms). The TIES classrooms showed significant improvements, while no significant improvements were observed in non-TIES classrooms across both datasets. Trauma-informed early intervention services are a critical prevention strategy for children who experience trauma and the settings that serve them. The current study found significant beneficial effects of TIES services for the classroom environments of young children impacted by trauma exposure. Implications for effective prevention strategies for school based early intervention programs are discussed.