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ACEs Connection suggest I post this inquiry on this Discussions forum. 

 

Many, many organizations claim to be trauma-informed. The field has grown so much that it has gone from groundbreaking to a buzzword. All of us sense that something very important shifts from trauma-informed care implementation. But, how do we know if something is truly different? What distinguishes an organization that has dabbled from one that has truly shifted their culture? How do we measure TIC? How do we operationalize the broad TIC principles?

 

I am part of a research team from the Traumatic Stress Institute of Klingberg Family Centers and Tulane University working on this question. We have developed a psychometric measure called the ARTIC (Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care) to measure staff attitudes favorable (or not) toward TIC which has been accepted for publication and will be out in early 2016.

 

There was not a lot in the empirical literature about attempts to measure TIC outcomes and nothing about specific measures with psychometric properties. There are a few articles about outcomes at several levels: client/student; staff; system; cost savings. But, I know there is SO much going on in the practice/applied world related to TIC.

 

So, my question to this great resource. What efforts, initiatives, research are you aware of that is trying to operationalize and measure the concept of TIC?  Who are the key people we should be in touch with about this?  We want to make sure we are surveying what is truly going on out there in the TIC universe and learn from what others are doing.

 

Thanks in advance for information you can provide.

 

Best, Steve Brown, Psy.D.,

Director, Traumatic Stress Institute of Klingberg Family Centers,

New Britain, CT

steveb@klingberg.com,

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Please feel free to email me privately about my experience of participating in the training and introduction of the sanctuary model to prior work places.  I now have an independent practice that is mostly focused on trauma recovery.  Great resource you are/have created.  Can bringing in a TIC program to an agency be traumatic?  Unfortunately, I think, yes it can be.  I think TIC should be a universal practice.  Not everyone agrees.

 

There is a section that has a few articles about this topic on this link . http://www.sanctuaryweb.com/Pu...icationsbyTopic.aspx

Carolyn@paxlumenbhs.com 

This is a question of great interest to me as well, since I came into this field from a research perspective. About three years ago, we started developing a set of benchmarks for agencies that was intended to allow us to count something so that we could assess impact (some sort of fidelity instrument).  However, I think operationalizing and measuring TIC is going to be extremely difficult - and is a ways out - and for that reason, our Standards of Practice here in Oregon are evolving to be more qualitative and developmental.  We'll see if we can pull something more quantitative out of it as we move it into use in the field over this next year.  But getting something that is reliable across organizations will be tough.

That said, there has been some research in schools looking at the impact on suspension and expulsion of certain changes in disciplinary strategies.  But, again, measuring implementation is the trick.

We would be extremely interested in the ARTIC measure - we have a doctoral student who is interested in doing some research in this area.

 

  

Wow, this is wonderful and so much at the forefront of my thoughts.  I am in my final year of stidy for my Master's in Organizational Development and Leadership. I am conceptualizing my Thesis/Capstone Project which is likely to be right along these lines. I would be very interested in discussing your work - I see your contact information here. If you are interested in connecting, I will be happy to email or give you a call.   

 

Liz Daly

Philadelphia, PA

Thank you everyone for you useful comments and I will try to reply individually. My collaborator, Dr. Courtney Baker at Tulane, did a thorough review of the empirical literature and there is very little out there right now.  The few published studies look at outcomes at:  1. student/client level; 2. staff level; 3. system level; 4. cost savings. We looked at staff level outcomes because we felt that it WAS possible to perhaps design a measure that is usable across many settings (mental health, schools, corrections, medical, perhaps even foster care). We also had goals of being practical, proximal, and psychometrically sound. We did some self-report validity analysis (for example, whether higher ARTIC scores connect to settings who have attempted to implement TIC). The next step will of course to do more validity work to see if ARTIC scores are connected to other TIC indicators (implementation, fidelity to implementation, supervisor assessment of TIC staff attitudes, etc). We really wanted to publish the study in the empirical literature to provide background data/information to the field about this  (time consuming, yet humble) effort at measurement. Let's keep dialogue going. Thanks for all the comments, Steve

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