Session: Using Science to Teach Trauma Content (Society for Social Work and Research 25th Annual Conference - Social Work Science for Social Change)

Due to the high incidence of trauma in the lives of clients, social workers often provide trauma-informed care. Currently, the number of social workers trained in trauma-informed care is insufficient to meet demand. Therefore, the number of social workers trained needs to increase. However, teaching trauma content is complex. First, research has frequently found social workers often enter the profession with a personal history of trauma, and with more trauma exposure that other professions, which places them at risk for being (re)traumatized while learning. Second, social workers often work with racial and ethnic minorities, which requires providing care that addresses racial trauma. However, the process of learning about racial trauma can be emotionally draining for some students. Given these complexities in learning about trauma, instructors need to rely on science to guide their teaching practices. The purpose of this symposium is to describe current approaches to teaching trauma content based on science � through a systematic review, a qualitative study, and a mixed-methods study.

This symposium combines three papers to describe the current science on how to teach trauma content. The first paper is a systematic review that summarizes the literature on teaching methods used to reduce the potential negative effect of trauma content in the classroom on students. Using the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews, findings from this study identified current “best practices� and highlights directions for future research. The second paper is a qualitative study that identifies the evidence-based instructional strategies and distress tolerance activities that higher education students identified as helpful when learning about racial trauma. Findings from this study show teaching about racial trauma is complex and requires the incorporation of evidence-based teaching strategies and distress tolerance activities to minimize distress in participants. The third paper uses explanatory sequential mixed-methods to evaluate the effectiveness of integrating evidence-based instructional strategies in a graduate-level course on trauma. Findings suggested students perceived an improvement in their confidence and skills when working with black adolescents exposed to trauma, which they described as linked to specific evidence-based instructional approaches.

At the conclusion of the symposium, participants will have an understanding of the current science regarding teaching trauma, exposure to possible teaching strategies that can reduce the potential for adverse consequences on students, and information on an effective method of integrating evidence-based instruction into the classroom. Moreover, participants will understand directions for future research on the topic of teaching trauma content.