COVID-19: Preparing Schools to Address Childhood Trauma (RPA Pilot / Seed )

Schools are in a unique position to offer services aimed at mitigating the effects of trauma. However, there is a lack of empirical support regarding the practices necessary for creating and sustaining trauma informed practice (TIPs). In the Commonwealth of Kentucky, scholars and school leaders have been collaborating since 2014 to train on-site school therapists to deliver evidence-based programs (EBPs). Despite evidence of foundational awareness of TIPs, teachers are still not referring students to EBPs, despite need. The primary objective of this pilot study is to develop strategies to facilitate the full integration of EBPs into the milieu. To that end, an online curriculum to increase school personnel's understanding of trauma informed care, screening, and referral procedures in two counties (Fayette and Pulaski) will be developed, implemented, and evaluated. The training, while relying on case studies, is hypothesized to illustrate how to evoke and stimulate exchanges between school leaders and personnel about the treatments' efficacy, applicability, adaptability, feasibility, and outcomes. Lead researchers will examine the impact of these exchanges (compared to training as usual) on teachers and staffs knowledge of TIPs and EBPs, and their intention to make before and after online training implementation will also be assessed. The preliminary data will be used to justify the need for NIH funding to expand dissemination, implementation, and evaluation efforts across the state of Kentucky and beyond.