Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is prevalent and confers risk for psychopathology later in life. Approaches to understanding the impact of ACEs on development include the independent risk approach, the Dimensional Model of Adversity and Psychopathology (DMAP) distinguishing between threat and deprivation events, and the cumulative risk approach. The present research provides an empirical confirmation of DMAP and a comparison of these three approaches in predicting internalizing and externalizing symptoms in youth. In Study 1, mental health professionals (N = 57) rated ACEs as threat or deprivation events. These ratings were used to create composites to represent the DMAP approach in Study 2. With cross-sectional and longitudinal data from children and adolescents in state custody (N = 23,850), hierarchical linear regression analyses examined independent risk, DMAP, and cumulative risk models in predicting internalizing symptoms, disinhibited externalizing symptoms, and antagonistic externalizing symptoms. All three approaches produced significant models and revealed associations between exposure to ACEs and symptoms. Individual risk accounted for significantly more variance in symptoms than cumulative risk and DMAP. Cumulative risk masked differential associations between ACEs and psychological symptoms found in the individual risk and DMAP approaches.

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The Child Protective Services (CPS) Academy was designed to equip members of the child-welfare workforce with knowledge that would assist them with addressing trauma in the lives of children and families. In its design, the CPS Academy applied principles of trauma-informed care, integrating evidence-based research, and a variety of clinical strategies into a comprehensive training program. Over a 2-year period, 277 frontline workers completed training through the CPS Academy. Data were collected as part of a quality-improvement effort to gauge participant satisfaction with the training platform. Participants reported that all components of the training were beneficial and relevant to their work in child welfare. Participants also demonstrated statistically significant improvement in trauma knowledge after participation in the CPS Academy (z = −4.73, p < .001), regardless of their level of education or years of experience in child welfare, F(3, 196) = 1.85, p = .14, ηp2 = .03, 95% CI [0.00, 0.07]. Therefore, the content and structure of the CPS Academy can be implemented within large organizational systems to train child-welfare and CPS workforces efficiently and effectively.

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