Trauma-informed training and education for professionals in Australia: a scoping review

Abstract

Purpose Trauma-informed care and practice (TICP) has gained international attention since the mid-1990s, but its recent adoption in Australia has been met with various barriers, including a lack of training and education opportunities to enhance professional knowledge and practice. This paper aims to identify and further understand what is occurring in TICP training and education for health and human service professionals in Australia; specifically, what is known about TICP content and training strategies being used. Design/methodology/approach A scoping methodology was used to undertake a systematic search of the literature to identify and map the scope and nature of research activity on TICP training and education for professionals in Australia. Based on the predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria, removal of duplications, abstract review and full-text screening, six studies met the inclusion criteria for content analysis in this review. Findings The studies showed that TICP training and education was occurring predominantly in the Australian health sector for nursing professionals and improved knowledge, confidence to respond to disclosures of trauma and approaches to care. Training was commonly delivered through one-day workshops and brief Web-based approaches. The findings suggested that there is a need for consensus on TICP content to ensure that fidelity to the principles of TICP is promoted in unique workplace settings and for ongoing commitment by relevant stakeholders and funding bodies. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first review exploring what is happening across disciplines and sectors for trauma-informed education. The findings have implications for clinicians, professionals, educators and researchers.

Lived experience narratives in health professional education: educators’ perspectives of a co-designed, online mental health education resource

“…Difficulties implementing trauma informed care and practice due to a lack of education and training have been identified through research [ 35 , 36 ]. In a scoping review conducted by McNaughton et al [ 37 ] it was noted that although education about trauma informed care is occurring with health professionals (predominantly nurses), they found minimal evidence to show that people with lived experience were included in this education. The Listening to Voices resource has much to contribute to the reduction of stigma often associated with people experiencing psychological distress and mental ill-health and to increasing the effective implementation of trauma informed care principles.…”

Adverse childhood experiences and trauma informed care for chiropractors: a call to awareness and action

“…In addition, traumainformed chiropractors could recommend multidisciplinary care that addresses a patient's unresolved trauma to complement or replace chiropractic care, as indicated. [38,39,42,43,48] While trauma-informed care is an evolving concept in chiropractic, TIC is well studied, widely adopted, and increasingly integrated across many professions and healthcare settings [8,38,48,49,[60][61][62][63][64][65][66].…”

“…Training both students and practitioners of chiropractic will help increase the profession's competency and reduce the likelihood of negative incidence related to implementation of trauma screening and subsequent care, and is being implemented in other healthcare professions [65,123,124,[124][125][126][127][128][129][130][131]. Outcomes of such training have also begun to be measured, adding credibility to TIC and the addition of ACE awareness in regular practice [46,62,64,125,128].…”