Maria Lotty et al. · 2020 · Child Abuse & Neglect · Open access
BACKGROUND: The need to improve the quality of foster care training has been highlighted and evidenced-based programs that aim to support foster carers in the care of children who have experienced trauma are warranted. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Fostering Connections program, a newly developed trauma-informed care program within the national child welfare agency in Ireland. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The study included 79 foster carers. The Fostering Connections group-based experiential intervention was delivered over a period of 6-weeks in a community-based setting to intervention group participants. METHODS: A quasi-experimental design was used to compare the results of the intervention group (n = 49), to a control group (n = 30,) who received usual care. Standardized assessment measures were used at baseline, 6-weeks on completion, 16 weeks and 15 months post-intervention. Foster carers' knowledge of trauma-informed fostering, tolerance of misbehavior and fostering efficacy, and children's emotional and behavioral difficulties were assessed. RESULTS: Significant improvements were found in foster carers' knowledge of trauma-informed fostering (p < 0.001), tolerance of child misbehavior (p = 0.007) and fostering efficacy (p < 0.001), with effect sizes ranging from medium to large and sustained over fifteen months (ES = 0.07-0.14). Significant improvement was also found in children's emotional and behavioral difficulties at fifteen months (p = 0.019), with a small effect size (ES = 0.05). CONCLUSION: Preliminary evidence suggests that Fostering Connections is potentially an effective intervention in increasing foster carer's capacity to provide children with trauma-informed care.
Research and education tool only. Not for diagnosis, emergency care, legal advice, or treatment recommendations. Verify citations against original sources.
Barnabás Oláh et al. · 2023 · Frontiers in Public Health · Open access
Introduction: Multiple evidence suggests that the vast majority of children in the Child Welfare System (CWS) are victims of early, chronic, and multiple adverse childhood experiences. However, the 10-item version of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire (ACE-10) has never been tested in such a particularly vulnerable population as adolescents living in the CWS. We aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the ACE-10 in a community sample of 240 Hungarian adolescents placed in family style group care (FGC) setting. Methods: Demographic data, the 10-item version of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire (ACE-10), the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), and the HBSC Bullying Measure were used. Results: < 0.001). However, our results also reflect that item 6 ("Parental separation/divorce") is weakly correlated with both the cumulative ACE score and the rest of the questionnaire items. When item 6 is removed, the 9-item version of the ACE produces more favorable consistency results (α = 0.729). Strong and significant associations of the cumulative ACE score with emotional and behavioral symptoms and bully victimization confirm the concurrent criterion validity of both versions of the instrument. Discussion: Our findings suggest that ACE-9 and ACE-10 are viable screening tools for adverse childhood experiences in the CWS contributing to the advancement of trauma-informed care. We recommend considering the use of either the 9-item or the 10- item version in the light of the characteristics of the surveyed population. The implications and limitations are discussed.
Adam D. Brown et al. · 2013 · Journal of Family Violence · Open access
Although abundant evidence exists indicating the prevalence of trauma exposure among youth in residential care, few models exist for creating trauma-informed milieu treatment. This article outlines the problem and describes the implementation of Trauma Systems Therapy (TST) in three residential centers. TST is unique in emphasizing youth emotions and behaviors as well as the role a distressed or threatening social environment may play in keeping a traumatized youth in a dysregulated state. This dual emphasis makes TST specifically appropriate to implementation in congregate care, focusing assessment and intervention strategies on both clinical treatment and the functioning of the therapeutic milieu itself. Data are reported on incidents of the use of physical restraint; numbers of disrupted foster care placements following discharge from residential treatment; and scores on psychometric measures of children's functioning and emotion regulation capacity. Knowledge gained through TST implementation in these three residential centers has important implications for developing a model of trauma-informed congregate care.
Danessa Mayo et al. · 2017 · Frontiers in Psychiatry · Open access
The experience of childhood trauma (CT) and stressful life events (SLEs) is associated with subsequent development of a variety of mental health conditions, including psychotic illness. Recent research identifying adolescents and young adults at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis allows for prospective evaluation of the impact of trauma and adverse life events on psychosis onset and other outcomes, addressing etiological questions that cannot be answered in studies of fully psychotic or non-clinical populations. This article provides a comprehensive review of the current emerging literature on trauma and adverse life events in the CHR population. Up to 80% of CHR youth endorse a lifetime history of childhood traumatic events and victimization (e.g., bullying). Several studies have shown that the experience of CT predicts psychosis onset among CHR individuals, while the literature on the influence of recent SLEs (e.g., death of a loved one) remains inconclusive. Multiple models have been proposed to explain the link between trauma and psychosis, including the stress-vulnerability and stress-sensitivity hypotheses, with emphases on both cognitive processes and neurobiological mechanisms (e.g., the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis). Despite the preponderance of CHR individuals who endorse either CT or SLEs, no clinical trials have been conducted evaluating interventions for trauma in CHR youth to date. Furthermore, the current process of formal identification and assessment of trauma, SLEs, and their impact on CHR youth is inconsistent in research and clinical practice. Recommendations for improving trauma assessment, treatment, and future research directions in the CHR field are provided.
Margaret E. Kruk et al. · 2018 · The Lancet Global Health · Open access
deaths from cardio vascular disease, 1 million newborn deaths, 900 000 deaths from tubercu losis, and half of all maternal deaths each year.Quality of care will become an even larger driver of population health as utilisation of health systems increases and as the burden of disease shifts to more complex conditions.The high mortality rates in LMICs for treatable causes, such as injuries and surgical con ditions, maternal and newborn complications, cardio vascular disease, and vaccine preventable diseases, illustrate the breadth and depth of the healthcare quality challenge.Poor-quality care can lead to other adverse outcomes, including un necessary health-related suffering, persistent symptoms, loss of function, and a lack of trust and confidence in health systems.Waste of resources and catastrophic expenditures are economic side effects of poor-quality health systems.As a result of this, only one-quarter of people in LMICs believe that their health systems work well. Health systems should measure and report what matters most to people, such as competent care, user experience, health outcomes, and confidence in the systemMeasurement is key to accountability and improvement, but available measures do not capture many of the processes and outcomes that matter most to people.At the same time, data systems generate many metrics that produce inadequate insight at a substantial cost in funds and health workers' time.For example, although inputs such as medicines and equipment are commonly counted in surveys, these are weakly related to the quality of care that people receive.Indicators such as proportion of births with skilled attendants do not reflect quality of childbirth care and might lead to false complacency about progress in maternal and newborn health.This Commission calls for fewer, but better, measures of health system quality to be generated and used at national and subnational levels.Countries should report health system performance to the public annually by use of a dashboard of key metrics (eg, health outcomes, people's confidence in the system, system competence, and user experience) along with measures of financial protection and equity.Robust vital registries and trust worthy routine health information systems are prerequi sites for good performance assessment.Countries need agile new surveys and real-time measures of health facilities and populations that reflect the health systems of today and not those of the past.To generate and interpret data, countries need to invest in national institutions and professionals with strong quantitative and analytical skills.Global develop ment partners can support the generation and testing of public goods for health system measurement (civil and vital registries, routine data systems, and routine health system surveys) and promote national and regional institutions and the training and mentoring of scientists. New research is crucial for the transformation of low-quality health systems to high-quality onesData on care quality in LMICs do not reflect the current disease burden.In many of these countries, we know little about quality of care for respiratory diseases, cancer, mental health, injuries, and surgery, as well as the care of adolescents and elderly people.There are vast blind spots in areas such as user experience, system competence, confidence in the system, and the wellbeing of people, including patient-reported outcomes.Measuring the quality of the health system as a whole and across the care continuum is essential, but not done.Filling in these gaps will require not only better routine health information systems for monitoring, but also new research, as proposed in the research agenda of this Commission.For example, research will be needed to rigorously evaluate the effects and costs of recommended improvement approaches on health, patient experience, and financial protection.Implementation science studies can help discern the contextual factors that promote or hinder reform.New data collection and research should be explicitly designed to build national and regional research capacity. Improving quality of care will require system-wide actionTo address the scale and range of quality deficits we documented in this Commission, reforming the foundations of the health system is required.Because health systems are complex adaptive systems that function at multiple interconnected levels, fixes at the micro-level (ie, health-care provider or clinic) alone are unlikely to alter the underlying performance of the whole system.However, we found that interventions aimed at changing provider behaviour dominate the improvement field, even though many of these interventions have a modest effect on provider performance and are difficult to scale and sustain over time.Achieving high-quality health systems requires expanding the space for improvement to structural reforms that act on the foundations of the system.This Commission endorses four universal actions to raise quality across the health system.First, health system leaders need to govern for quality by adopting a shared vision of quality care, a clear quality strategy, strong regulation, and continuous learning.Ministries of health cannot accomplish this alone and need to partner with the private sector, civil society, and sectors outside of health care, such as education, infrastructure, communication, and transport.Second, countries should redesign service delivery to maximise health outcomes rather than geographical access to services alone.Primary care could tackle a greater range of low-acuity conditions, whereas hospitals or specialised health centres should provide care for conditions, such as births, that need advanced clinical expertise or have the risk of unexpected complications.Third, countries should transform the health workforce by adopting competency-based clinical education, introducing training in ethics and respectful care, and better supportingThe Lancet Global Health Commission and respecting all workers to deliver the best care possible.Fourth, governments and civil society should ignite demand for quality in the population to empower people to hold systems accountable and actively seek high-quality care.Additional targeted actions in areas such as health financing, management, district-level learning, and others can complement these efforts.What works in one setting might not work elsewhere, and improvement efforts should be adapted for local context and monitored.Funders should align their support with system-wide strategies rather than contribute to the proliferation of micro-level efforts.In this Commission, we assert that providing health services without guaranteeing a minimum level of quality is ineffective, wasteful, and unethical.Moving to a highquality health system-one that improves health and generates confidence and economic benefits-is primarily a political, not technical, decision.National governments need to invest in high-quality health systems for their own people and make such systems accountable to people through legislation, education about rights, regulation, transparency, and greater public participation.Countries will know that they are on the way towards a high-quality, accountable health system when health workers and policymakers choose to receive health care in their own public institutions.
Corey Lieneman et al. · 2017 · Psychology Research and Behavior Management · Open access
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is an empirically supported intervention originally developed to treat disruptive behavior problems in children between the ages of 2 and 7 years. Since its creation over 40 years ago, PCIT has been studied internationally with various populations and has been found to be an effective intervention for numerous behavioral and emotional issues. This article summarizes progress in the PCIT literature over the past decade (2006-2017) and outlines future directions for this important work. Recent PCIT research related to treatment effectiveness, treatment components, adaptations for specific populations (age groups, cultural groups, military families, individuals diagnosed with specific disorders, trauma survivors, and the hearing-impaired), format changes (group and home-based), teacher-child interaction training (TCIT), intensive PCIT (I-PCIT), treatment as prevention (for externalizing problems, child maltreatment, and developmental delays), and implementation are discussed.
Breanne E. Kearney & Ruth A. Lanius · 2022 · Frontiers in Neuroscience · Open access
Although the manifestation of trauma in the body is a phenomenon well-endorsed by clinicians and traumatized individuals, the neurobiological underpinnings of this manifestation remain unclear. The notion of somatic sensory processing, which encompasses vestibular and somatosensory processing and relates to the sensory systems concerned with how the physical body exists in and relates to physical space, is introduced as a major contributor to overall regulatory, social-emotional, and self-referential functioning. From a phylogenetically and ontogenetically informed perspective, trauma-related symptomology is conceptualized to be grounded in brainstem-level somatic sensory processing dysfunction and its cascading influences on physiological arousal modulation, affect regulation, and higher-order capacities. Lastly, we introduce a novel hierarchical model bridging somatic sensory processes with limbic and neocortical mechanisms regulating an individual's emotional experience and sense of a relational, agentive self. This model provides a working framework for the neurobiologically informed assessment and treatment of trauma-related conditions from a somatic sensory processing perspective.
Raquel Gallego Calderón et al. · 2019 · The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context · Open access
In order to examine the literature on the relationship between child-to-parent violence and parent-to-child violence, a meta-analytic review was designed with 26 effect sizes assessing the relationship between child-to-parent and parent-to-child violence in 19 primary studies. Correlational effect sizes were computed and corrected for sampling error, and predictor and criterion unreliability. The results showed a significantly positive, medium magnitude (ρ = .36) mean true effect size for the relationship between child-to-parent violence and parent-to-child violence. Similar results were found for direct and vicarious victimization. The probability of developing child-to-parent violence for children victimized by parents increased 71% as compared to non-victimized children. The child-to parent violence type (physical or psychological), and the population (judicial or community) were analysed as moderators. The results revealed similar effects in both types of child-to-parent violence and in both populations: a significantly positive, medium in magnitude mean true effect size. The theoretical and practical implications for measuring child-to parent violence are discussed.