An Investigation of Secondary Traumatic Stress and Trauma-Informed Care Utilization in School Personnel

Background: Trauma-informed practices (TIPs) in schools are designed to address the impacts of trauma on students and increase supports for school personnel (Mendelson, et al, 2015). Research has established that professionals trained to implement TIPs may have secondary traumatic stress (STS) reactions that could interfere with successful implementation (Stevens, et al., 2020). Thus, it was hypothesized that increased use of TIPs would be associated with decreases in STS scores at the end of a trauma-informed learning collaborative initiative in Kentucky, controlling for socio-demographics.

Methods: The Trauma Sensitive Schools Checklist (TSSC) and the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (STSS) were administered to a sample of 205 school personnel prior to the learning collaborative and follow up one year later. The total TSSC score served as the dependent variable while each of the STSS subscale scores (intrusion, avoidance, negative cognition and mood, and arousal) were included in the generalized linear mixed models as independent variables.

Results: Total TSSC scores increased while STSS subscale scores decreased. While results showed no significant associations between total TSSC scores and 1) avoidance, and 2) negative cognition and mood, intrusion and arousal were significant. At baseline, as intrusion increased, TSSC scores decreased; although at Time 2, TSSC scores did not change, even as STS intrusion increased. At baseline and Time 2, as arousal increased, total TSSC scores increased. However, TSSC scores at Time 2 did not reach statistical significance.

Conclusions: Results suggest that TSSC scores do not improve significantly when educators experience high levels of intrusion and arousal. While TIPs are universally available, educators trained to adhere to TIPs may have STSS reactions that could interfere with successful implementation. Future research should investigate strategies to address these symptom clusters so that TIPs can benefit students who are experiencing trauma as well as those that educate and support them.