Promoting Evidence-Based,Trauma-Informed Social Work Practice

ABSTRACT

Given the human costs of psychological trauma, social workers should be well versed in trauma-informed care (TIC). This framework helps guide the efforts of systems, organizations, and practitioners toward reducing trauma or mitigating its effects. The field has created TIC principles, although they have yet to be fully realized as practical applications. This article makes the case that theoretically and empirically grounded content on trauma should be foundational to social work education. We also argue that social work practice will be advanced by clearly defining trauma and by distinguishing TIC from trauma-focused and trauma-sensitive approaches. Finally, a TIC certificate program illustrates how graduate student training and social work practice are enhanced by integrating trauma content into classroom and field settings.     

Maltreatment prevention through early childhood intervention: A confirmatory evaluation of the Chicago Child-Parent Center preschool program

Increased recognition of the consequences associated with child maltreatment has led to greater emphasis on its prevention. Promising maltreatment prevention strategies have been identified, but research continues to suffer from methodological limitations and a narrow focus on select prevention models. This investigation uses data from the Chicago Longitudinal Study to examine mediating mechanisms that link the Chicago Child-Parent Center preschool program to a reduction in overall child maltreatment and, more specifically, child neglect. We use structural equation modeling to test child, family, and school measures hypothesized to mediate the effects of CPC participation on maltreatment and neglect. Results indicate that a substantial proportion of the program's impacts can be accounted for by family support processes, including increased parent involvement in school and maternal educational attainment as well as decreased family problems. The CPC program's association with reduced school mobility and increased attendance in higher-quality schools also significantly mediated its effects on maltreatment and neglect. Further, a decrease in troublemaking behavior contributed modestly to mediating the program's association with maltreatment but not neglect. We discuss the implications of these results for the field of maltreatment prevention.     

Complementing SBIRT for Alcohol Misuse with SBIRT for Trauma: A Feasibility Study

Reducing alcohol misuse is a priority for U.S. health officials considering that misuse of alcohol is a leading preventable cause of morbidity and mortality. Consequently, health centers are integrating Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) for alcohol misuse within usual care. Although SBIRT is well validated among general patient samples, results have not generalized to drinkers with probable alcohol use disorder; moreover, little is known about the efficacy of SBIRT with patients who are of low-income or ethnic or racial minority status. Members of these groups are of particular concern because they are at risk to experience trauma, potentially in concert with alcohol misuse. Therefore, translational approaches to delivering SBIRT particularly with these groups of interest might be needed to meet the Grand Challenge of reducing alcohol misuse. Accordingly, this study combined SBIRT with a model designed to address psychological trauma: T-SBIRT. With a sample of 112 adults, most of whom were African American or Latino/a, authors analyzed multiple indicators of feasibility. Results indicated that T-SBIRT is suitable for and acceptable to patients accessing community-based health services, and T-SBIRT can promote high referral acceptance rates to specialty treatment, particularly among patients with probable alcohol use disorder.     

Bidirectional Relations between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Children’s Behavioral Problems

Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal - Research has shown that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) increase the risk of poor health and well-being, yet less is known about the pathways through...     

Adult resilience among maltreated children: A prospective investigation of main effect and mediating models

Studies examining resilience to child maltreatment reveal that maltreatment victims can achieve adaptive functioning in several areas of development; however, few of these individuals persistently demonstrate resilience across multiple domains. The majority of these investigations define adjustment with a limited number of outcomes measured proximal in time to the maltreatment experience. In contrast, this study measured adjustment across a diverse set of domains during early adulthood (ages 16–24), a number of years after the occurrence of childhood maltreatment (ages 0–11).     

Adult well-being of foster care alumni: Comparisons to other child welfare recipients and a non-child welfare sample in a high-risk,urban setting

Research has shown that children placed in foster care fall below population norms on many indicators of well-being. Yet few studies have been designed to distill the effects of foster care from conditions that precede foster care. Based on the available evidence, it is also uncertain whether the purported effects of foster care are lasting. This study used data gathered prospectively from an economically disadvantaged, urban cohort to examine whether foster care is associated with decreased educational and economic attainments as well as increased criminality in adulthood. Individuals who were placed in foster care after an indicated allegation of maltreatment were compared to three naturally occurring groups: (a) maltreatment victims who did not reside in foster care, (b) individuals without an indicated maltreatment allegation who were raised in a household with a Child Protective Services (CPS) record, and (c) individuals without an individual or household record of CPS involvement. Using multiple estimation procedures, we found that all participants with a CPS record fared worse in adulthood than their peers without a CPS record. Despite their poor outcomes, foster children functioned as well as other CPS recipients who did not reside in foster care. Our findings indicate that caution is warranted when attributing dysfunction observed in foster children to the effects of foster care. Implications for prevention and intervention within the context of child welfare are discussed.