Session: Maternal Depression and Trauma: Do They Interact to Impact Children's Psychosocial Functioning? (Society for Social Work and Research 22nd Annual Conference - Achieving Equal Opportunity, Equity, and Justice)

Background and Purpose: Extensive research has established the relationship of maternal depression with negative outcomes in children's functioning across multiple domains. Much less research has focused on how the experience of maternal trauma relates to children's functioning, and even less on how the experience of maternal depression and trauma symptoms may interact to influence children's functioning. The purpose of this symposium was to explore the relationships between maternal depression, trauma, and children's functioning across three different samples gathered in different settings, and with children of different ages to see whether maternal depression and trauma interact in their relationships with children's functioning.

Method: Three papers are presented in this symposium, each of which has been chosen to reflect a different population and setting to begin to explore the relationships between maternal trauma and depression. The symposium begins with a paper examining the relationship of maternal depression and trauma on children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors at intake into an infant mental health program. The program serves children 0-5 and their families who are involved or at risk of involvement with child welfare. The second study is of mothers at intake into an intervention study on depression and examines the influence of depression and trauma on children's behavior related to school readiness. The children are entering Head Start (ages 3-5) and the sample includes mothers with and without depression. The third study uses data from the first wave of a longitudinal study of maltreatment on development. The sample includes both maltreated and non-maltreated children ages 9-12 and their biological mothers.

Results: The 3 studies found different relationships between the constructs with both interactions and lack of interactions of depression and trauma. Following the presentations of each paper, reasons for the disparate findings will be explored with the presenters and audience. The group will also discuss implications for clinical practice and future research.