Lessons from the field: implementing a Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) pilot program in a child welfare system

ABSTRACT

The current paper evaluates a pilot program implementing Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) among a sample of child welfare staff working across eight organizations in order to (1) describe the first year of implementation and (2) examine staff and organizational change. Staff completed assessments of trauma-informed care attitudes and organizational functioning at the start of the project and at the end of the first year of implementation. Results indicate improvement across scales, with implications for the importance of fostering key roles (e.g., mentors) and planning for workforce changes (e.g., recurring trainings) in facilitating implementations that will function in child welfare settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Trauma-informed
• child welfare system
• child welfare workforce
• implementation
• intervention

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Arnall Family Foundation;

Notes on contributors

Rachel D. Crawley

Rachel D. Crawley, PhD, LPC is a research scientist at the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX.

Erin Becker Rázuri

Erin Becker Rázuri, PhD is a research scientist at the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX.

Cindy Lee

Cindy Lee, LCSW, LADC is the Executive Director and co-founder of the HALO Project, a nonprofit that unites foster and adoptive parents with child welfare and mental health professionals to bring healing to children who have experienced trauma.

Sarah Mercado

Sarah Mercado is a Training Specialist with the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX.