The Need for Measurement of Trauma-Informed Climate across Multiple Constituent Roles in Volunteer Organizations

Background and Purpose: Interest in adapting organizational policies and practices to address trauma continues to grow. Several measures have been designed to assess trauma-informed (TI) environments, but these measures primarily assess values, attitudes, and activities rather than organizational climate. Given that the intention of TI approaches is to change organizational climate to benefit trauma survivors, new measures were needed. We sought to understand both the perceived necessity for trauma responsiveness in volunteer organizations and the presence of TI climate within them. The research questions guiding this study were: How important is it for agency staff, leadership, and volunteers to experience a TI climate? To what extent do staff and volunteers report experiences of TI climate in their organizations?

Methods: Participants (N = 454) were recruited from a network of California volunteer organizations to complete an anonymous online survey. A TI climate instrument was designed to address a dearth of appropriate measures, a need to assess organizational climate across multiple roles and in alignment with best practices for climate research, and to include issues of diversity and inclusion, which are essential for understanding how welcoming and supportive an environment is for all constituents. The instrument assessed an organization’s commitment to trauma (α = .91); psychological/physical safety (α = .85); strengths-based, equitable focus (α = .95); and relationship quality (α = .95) through reports from multiple constituent types (i.e., staff, board, and volunteers). Answers were on a 5-point Likert scale where 1 = Not at all and 5 = Completely true. Respondents included 232 agency volunteers, 167 staff members, and 55 board members across 36 organizations. Descriptive statistics and ANOVAs were conducted to understand respondents’ overall experiences of TI climate and to compare experiences by role and personal characteristics (e.g., age, gender, race/ethnicity).

Results: Respondents reported a very high need for TI climate by all constituents: 94.6% believed it was needed to a large or very large extent by staff members, 93.8% by volunteers, 90.1% by youth supported by the organization, and 76.7% by board members. Respondents strongly endorsed a commitment to being trauma informed within their organizations (M = 4.08, SD = 0.83). They also perceived high organizational safety (M = 4.45, SD = 0.58); strengths-based, equity focus (M = 4.54, SD = 0.62); and relationship quality (M = 4.22, SD = 0.81). Board members and agency executive teams generally reported better climate than did other staff members and volunteers. Few differences were reported between races and ethnicities, but respondents who identified as neither male nor female, lived in urban areas, or were aged 31-40 reported lower safety, equity, and relationship quality.

Conclusions and Implications: This study supported a need for TI climate in volunteer organizations. It also provided initial evidence of strong internal consistency for a new instrument measuring TI climate. Given the popularity of trauma-informed approaches in human services organizations, it is important to be able to measure not only the presence of TI behaviors and attitudes, but also the climate that results from such activities.