Variables Influencing School Staff Acceptability Ratings of Trauma-Informed Care

INTRODUCTION: Schools are a promising venue for contacting, identifying, and treating trauma-exposed children and youth. Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) is a systems-level approach in which service systems, such as schools, recognize the pervasive impact of trauma and aim to ameliorate rather than exacerbate its effects. To initiate such systems-level reform in schools, implementation science prioritizes gaining staff consensus for new approaches. One mechanism for fostering this consensus is a staff-wide introductory training in TIC. Teachers’ ratings of acceptability during such trainings can predict future usage of interventions in their work.  The purpose of this study is to 1) examine staff ratings of TIC acceptability after a two-day school-wide TIC training, and 2) to better understand pre-training teacher characteristics that may influence those ratings.

METHOD: Staff from six New Orleans charter schools (N = 304, 63.6% female, 54% White, 35.4% African American) participated in pretest evaluations, which occurred immediately before the two-day TIC training, and posttest evaluations, which occurred at the conclusion of the training. Staff self-reported on demographic variables and beliefs about classroom management at pre-training. Staff self-reported on acceptability of TIC at post-training (Likert scale range: 1-6).

RESULTS: Staff reported high ratings of acceptability for TIC at post-training overall (M = 5.34; SD = .59). A main effect of school level (primary/middle vs. secondary) was found (p = .01), such that elementary and middle school staff provided significantly higher acceptability ratings (M = 5.42; SD = 0.54) than high school staff (M = 5.24; SD = 0.65). There was also a main effect for gender on acceptability ratings (p < .001), where female school staff provided significantly higher acceptability ratings (M = 5.48) than male school staff (M = 5.11). Higher pre-training scores on beliefs about classroom management were also associated with higher ratings of acceptability (p < .001). Finally, a two-way interaction was found between gender and beliefs about classroom management (p = .29) such that the relationship between favorable beliefs about classroom management and acceptability was stronger for men than for women.

CONCLUSIONS:

Many teacher characteristics can affect staff receptivity to a systems-level intervention like TIC, which illustrates the complexity of initiating such reform. Findings suggest that staff who teach at the primary or middle school levels, or who are female, demonstrate higher ratings of acceptability for the use of TIC in their schools, and that higher scores for classroom management attitudes can make teachers, and especially male teachers, more receptive to TIC.  Implications of these findings, limitations of the current study, and future research directions will be discussed.