Translating Trauma Research into Child Welfare Implementation: The Intersect of Research and Front-Line Practice

Trauma-informed practice has gained momentum in the child welfare field. Early trauma has been linked to severe psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression. The chronic and cumulative stress caused by interpersonal trauma and adversity is especially damaging to the developing brain and can impede healthy social and emotional development. Extensive research on trauma and its debilitating effects on neurological, social, and behavioral development has helped raise an awareness on the importance of recognizing and addressing childhood trauma in the child welfare population. This increased awareness has compelled child welfare agencies across the nation to move towards becoming a trauma-informed system that not only understands the impact of trauma on development but also minimize the damaging effects of trauma by providing appropriate assistance to children and families that come into contact with child protective services without causing additional trauma. These county and state agencies strive to integrates this body of research to change their organizational cultures, policies, and practices by implementing various interventions  
 

As the established trauma research moves into the implementation stage, researchers and child welfare agencies work even closer as they engage in the iterative process of translating the research in a child welfare setting and evaluation. The implementation of new evidence-based interventions is important for the advancement of the field; but this endeavor is often fraught with challenges particularly in the child welfare system such as high caseloads, the burden of heavy documentation requirements, staff burnout, turnover, and even initiative fatigue. Children in foster care are also diverse in age, background, and even in their child welfare involvement and how they respond to the interventions for trauma are equally as diverse. Researchers must work creatively not only to serve agency needs but to also create rigorous and valid research within the unique parameters of the public child welfare system. 
 

This roundtable session will begin a dialogue on infusing research into child welfare practice. Presenters will focus on models of dissemination of knowledge in organizations such as child welfare, agency-researcher partnership, as well as the role of academia in systems-change. One presenter will discuss the role of models of agency change. Another presenter will discuss implementation science in public institutions by examining the case of establishing a trauma-informed system through the dissemination of new initiatives such as trauma screenings. A third presenter will discuss evaluating trauma initiatives at the local level through quasi-experimental research designs. Our goal is to stimulate conversation that will foster sharing endeavors of the various researchers who work with agencies in implementing research-based initiatives.