An Evaluation of Whole-School Trauma-Informed Training Intervention Among Post-Primary School Personnel: A Mixed Methods Study

AbstractStudents ’ ability to reach their potential in school—both behaviourally and academically – is linked to their educator’s knowledge of child and adolescent development, childhood adversity and trauma, and how these impact learning and behaviour. However, teacher pre-service training programmes often offer inadequate instruction to meet the needs of trauma-impacted students. The purpose of the study was to investigate the benefits of professional development training in trauma-informed approaches on school personnel attitudes and compassion fatigue. There is a paucity of research on whole-school trauma-informed approaches and most have methodological limitations via the absence of a control group. In addressing this gap, the study is one of the first to utilise a control group in the research design to ensure findings are robust. The study utilised a quasi-experimental wait-list control pr e-post intervention design to evaluate the efficacy of trauma-informed professional development training. We compared attitudes and compassion fatigue among 216 school personnel (n?=?98 intervention,n?=?118 comparison) utilising the Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care (ARTIC) scale and the Professional Quality of Life scale (Pro-QoL). Quantitative data was supplemented by qualitative focus group data. Findings demonstrated that school-personnel within the intervention group reported si gnificant improvements in attitudes related to trauma-informed care, and a significant decrea...
Source: Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma - Category: Child Development Source Type: research