Trauma-informed attitudes in residential treatment settings: Staff, child and youth factors predicting adoption, maintenance and change over time

Abstract

BackgroundLittle is known about the benefits of implementing trauma-informed care (TIC) training programs for child welfare workers serving in out-of-home treatment settings, or about how staff, child and youth characteristics affect adoption of favorable attitudes towards TIC. ObjectiveThis study aimed to understand how attitudes towards TIC changed over time for child welfare workers receiving training and monthly supervision sessions. Participants and settingChild welfare workers (n = 429) serving juveniles mandated to protection or offender units (ages = 3–20 years), across 11 child protection agencies in Quebec, Canada. MethodsParticipants completed the ARTIC-35 at pre-training, 6 months post-training, and 1 year follow-up. Multilevel mixed effect regression models were fit to examine outcomes for all subscales. ResultsParticipants reported small improvements in attitudes towards TIC at post-training and 1 year follow-up for subscales related to problematic child/youth behavior (β = 0.23–0.32, p's < 0.001). Multilevel modeling revealed that age group (adolescent), unit gender (boys) and legal mandate (offender) predicted higher pre-training TIC ratings for staff in management versus frontline positions across three subscales related to problematic child/youth behavior (β = 0.77–0.93, p's < 0.05) and two subscales related to trauma work and support needs (β = 0.66/0.84, p's < 0.05). ConclusionsResults extend previous research demonstrating an association between TIC training and improved attitudes towards TIC over time, and highlight specific contexts in which frontline staff may experience more difficulty applying TIC-based principles than colleagues in management positions.