Enhancing Parental Awareness on Childhood Adversities through a Trauma Informed Parenting Training: A Elementary School and University Partnership

Background

Felitti and colleagues (1998) established 10 indicators of adverse childhood experiences which included psychological, physical, or sexual abuse; physical or emotional neglect; death of a parent; violence against mother; parental separation or divorce; or living with adults who were using drugs, experiencing mental illness, or ever imprisoned. Experiencing childhood adversities at an early age can lead to a greater risk for trauma which is associated with negative internalizing and externalizing behaviors as early as 9-years old (Hunt et al., 2017). Left unaddressed, adversity exposure can also have long-term health, developmental and psychological outcomes into adulthood (Felitti et al. 1998).

Schools are increasingly using trauma-informed training to improve educator awareness about childhood adversities and trauma; yet parents often do not have the same access to such training. Parents are often on the forefront of noticing the emotions, behaviors, and signs that indicate their child has been affected by an adversity. However, much of the trauma-informed parenting research has been based on foster parents and children (e.g., The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2017; Stenason & Romano, 2022; Strolin-Golzman et al., 2023). As such, we collaborated with an elementary school leader to provide a trauma-informed parenting training to educate parents on types of adversities, its impact on children, and how to provide responsive parenting.

Methods

This study asked, how will a trauma-informed parenting training inform parents/guardians about their parenting practices and the behaviors of their elementary school children? Data were drawn from 27 pre/post surveys and 8 interviews among parents who participated in a 5-hr training. A total of 66% of participants were white while 34% were people of color. Analyses included descriptive statistics for sample characteristics, paired T-tests for the pre/post tests, and non-parametric Wilcoxon Sign rank tests to examine differences in child behavior and parental/guardian trauma awareness. Qualitative analyses included both inductive and deductive coding with several cycles of pattern coding.

Results

Qualitative: Emergent themes included: (1) improved parental trauma-informed knowledge and (2) understanding behavior and learning through a trauma-informed lens. Overall parents described becoming more attuned to signs of distress and adjusting their parenting approach accordingly. Further, parents reported changes in their disciplinary practices, emphasizing the importance of empathy and communication in addressing behavioral issues. Quantitative: Parents reported that their children’s total behavior problems decreased from pre-test (M=4.87, SD=1.93) to post test (M=2.76, SD=.61), t(25)=11.56, p<.001 with a large effect size (d=.93). Results from the Wilcoxon-Signed Rank test demonstrated that parents’ reported reduced emotional symptoms, fewer conduct problems, less hyperactivity and fewer problems with social skills

Conclusion

In all, we found that parents demonstrated increased awareness around childhood adversities and child behaviors related to adversities. As a result, our partner school brought our adapted training to the school district and it was integrated with their district-wide trauma-informed training initiatives for parents. We discuss strategies for school social workers to implement this training with the parents they serve.