Intentional Practice as a Method to Reduce the Implementation Gap Between Science and Practice in the Delivery of Trauma-Informed Residential Care

ABSTRACT

Children and young people with backgrounds of trauma, and supported in residential programs (group care, residential treatment, wilderness therapy, and outdoor behavioral healthcare), require interventions underpinned by trauma-informed science. While there is much optimism that trauma-informed services are being integrated into residential care settings, there is evidence of a science to practice gap in how these components are implemented across real-world settings. The purpose of the paper is to introduce ‘intentional practice’ and growth-focused logic modeling (Life Buoyancy Model; LBM) as a possible method to strengthen the delivery of trauma-informed services at the program level. The paper provides an overview of the modeling and describes how the approach seeks to reduce the science to practice gap in the implementation of trauma-informed service delivery. To aid this process, five core intervention components are proposed to provide a more nuanced understanding of how trauma-informed practice can be implemented. Key considerations are offered for residential care program leaders and program developers to design, refine or review the delivery of locally contextualized program models.

KEYWORDS:

• Intentional practice
• trauma-informed practice
• implementation science
• program logic
• therapeutic residential care