Reductions in behavioural and emotional difficulties from a specialist, trauma-informed school

ABSTRACT

There is a myriad of research that demonstrates the links between experiences of trauma and emotional and behavioural issues in children and adolescents. Evidence is now emerging that highlights that schools are a critical system to deliver support and interventions to address childhood trauma. The ReLATE trauma-informed model uses schoolwide trauma specific interventions to support students who require high levels of adjustment in education. The ReLATE trauma-informed model was evaluated as a 12-month intervention at a specialist school for emotional and behavioural difficulties. The intervention led to beneficial adjustment in various emotional and behavioural outcome domains. Significant reductions were found for parent-reported conduct problems, peer problems and total difficulties. The intervention displayed large effect sizes over the 12-month period. New students to the school demonstrated more positive adjustment. Existing students demonstrated nonsignificant positive adjustment. A reliable change was found for Global Impact, which indicated the benefits that occurred from the intervention generalised into homelife, friendships, learning and leisure activities. While previous literature has focused on teacher-observed adjustments, this study provides a parent perspective of student adjustment. This study also provides clarity around trauma-training and discusses the role that psychologists can play as consultants when implementing trauma-informed practice models in schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Trauma-informed
• school
• specialist
• education
• behaviour
• conduct problems

Acknowledgments

Dr Shane Costello for his guidance in refining the scope of the study and editorial comments; Justin Roberts for his insights into the findings.

Conflicts of interest

MacKillop Education is the employer of the author.

Ethical standards

The author asserts that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008. The author asserts that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional guides on the care and use of laboratory animals.