No abstract

Despite the high prevalence of traumatic experiences and attachment disruptions among clients in child congregate care treatment settings, until recently there has been little formal training on trauma for staff serving this population. Staff trauma training is one important intervention for agencies aiming to implement trauma-informed care (TIC), a term describing an international trend in mental health care whereby treatment approaches and cultures recognize the pervasive impact of trauma and aim to ameliorate, rather than exacerbate, the effects of trauma. The current study examines the impact of the curriculum-based Risking Connection (RC) trauma training on the knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors of 261 staff trainees in 12 trainee groups at five child congregate care agencies. RC is one of several models used nationally and internationally as a pathway toward TIC culture change in human service organizations including residential treatment. For a subset of agencies, measures were collected at four different time points. Results showed an increase in knowledge about the core concepts of the RC training consistently across groups, an increase in beliefs favorable to TIC over time, and an increase in self-reported staff behavior favorable to TIC in the milieu. In addition, these findings suggest that the train-the-trainer (TTT) model of dissemination central to RC is effective at increasing beliefs favorable to TIC. Differences in posttraining changes between three agencies are qualitatively investigated and discussed as examples of the importance of organization-level factors in successful implementation of agency-wide interventions like RC. Implications for implementing RC and trauma-informed agency change are discussed.

Objective:The purpose of the current study is to validate the Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care Scale (ARTIC; Baker et al., 2016), a measure of trauma-informed care (TIC) attitudes for human service/health providers and educators. Method: The current study with 1,395 human services/health providers and educators from 17 settings examined the factor structure, reliability, and construct validity of the ARTIC. Results: The 7-factor structure of the ARTIC-45 and the 5-factor structure of the ARTIC-35 were replicated with regard to the absolute fit indices though they failed to meet the cutoff for the incremental fit indices, likely due to the complexity of the measure. Internal consistencies ranged from acceptable to excellent across the instrument's forms, subscales, and versions. Providing support for construct validity, ARTIC scores were predictably related to familiarity with and knowledge about TIC, compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress, with effect sizes typically in the medium range. However, predicted relationships between ARTIC scores and training in TIC and trauma-sensitive school elements were not evident. Conclusions: The ARTIC is a direct, efficient, and cost-effective measure of attitudes related to TIC. This study further demonstrates the reliability of the ARTIC and provides some support for its validity. Evaluating the favorability of staff attitudes about TIC plays a key role in ensuring readiness for, effectiveness of, and sustainability of TIC in systems. Clinical Impact StatementThe Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care Scale provides a cost-effective and efficient way to measure the trauma-informed care (TIC) attitudes of human services/health providers and educators across the stages of TIC implementation.

This case study documents improvements in staff attitudes favorable to TIC post-RC and RA and presents an in-depth analysis of TIC implementation. The study also highlights the complicated relationship between TIC implementation and staff experience of VT. Finally, this study provides a blueprint for conducting program evaluations of TIC. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

The differential effects of role-played vs. hypnotically induced simulation of a paranoid syndrome on diagnostic and validity scales of the MMPI were tested with 30 female undergraduate Ss. Hypnotized Ss given the paranoid syndrome suggestion simulated the MMPI more accurately than did role-playing Ss. The F scale and Gough F-K index of dissimulation identified the role-playing group, but not the hypnosis with simulation suggestion group. It was concluded that further refinement of the validity scales of the MMPI is needed to improve their effectiveness in detecting deception on this test.