Building Resilience in Elementary Schools: Pilot Data from a School Wide School Intervention

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as abuse, neglect and family dysfunction are predictive of negative health outcomes that led to early death in adulthood (Felitti et al., 1998). Seminal work by Felitti et al., (2008) demonstrated two formative findings: (a) ACEs are associated with poor adult health outcomes such as alcoholism, depression, obesity, and heart disease, and (b) ACEs are prevalent in the general population. 52% of the respondents in their study of 8,506 mostly Caucasian, educated individuals, had at least one ACE. One ACE exposure significantly increased the likelihood of having an additional ACE by 65-93%. Higher ACE scores were associated with increased risk of poor health outcomes. The ACE study connected the experience of childhood traumas to serious public health and social problems throughout the lifespan (Anda et al., 2010). Prevention science interventions are designed to thwart risk and promote protective factors in order to mitigate the complex social processes that influence human dysfunction (Coie et al., 1993). Elementary school provides an opportunity, as a universal system that serves the majority of children, to offer trauma informed care practices in an effort to improve student success.

Intervention. Our trauma informed intervention, We Can! Building Relationships and Resilience, is a monthly professional development training that is delivered to all school personnel. The goal is for the whole school to receive ACE information and trauma-informed trainings so that all adults that the youth interact with will be operating from a shared understanding. The intervention consists of didactic training as well as experiential learning. The didactic portion consists of psycho-education about ACEs, toxic stress, childhood development, and using trauma-informed practices in a classroom setting.

Data Collection. Qualitative and quantitative data has been and will continue to be collected through 4 time points throughout the year. Currently we have obtained baseline data and monthly focus groups. Concepts measured include: school culture and climate, teacher student relationships, influence of trauma on student’s behaviors, promotion of resilience, and staff confidence and efficacy. Based on pilot data last year, the reliability and validity of these measures were good with Cronbach alpha ranging from .73-.91.

Results. In our presentation, we will provide an overview of our intervention and the mixed methods results from 5 elementary schools and 3 control schools throughout the fall semester. We will report on preliminary data from 2 time points: baseline and time 2 out of 4.