Thursday, April 25, 2024
4/25/2024
Health disparities and systemic inequities cause child traumatic stress to have a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities. Addressing these disparities requires a diverse, skilled, well-supported, and resilient workforce. The proposed project, titled the "Center for Equity and Resilience in Trauma-Responsive Organizations," will create a Treatment and Service Adaptation Center to develop and implement a comprehensive approach to addressing these issues. Secondary traumatic stress is a major contributor to turnover in the helping professions, and it impedes the ability of providers to respond effectively to the children and families they serve. A lack of diversity in the workforce contributes to mental health disparities, lack of treatment engagement, and attrition among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Supporting a diverse workforce and preventing and addressing secondary traumatic stress are upstream approaches that can reach multitudes of children and families by improving the workforce’s ability to provide good care. The Center will be a partnership between the University of Denver Butler Institute for Families, and the University of Colorado Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect. Butler and Kempe have developed an approach with promising initial evaluation. With the support of this funding opportunity, the Center will expand, evaluate, refine, and disseminate this approach to build a diverse, skilled, well-supported, and resilient workforce among across child-, youth-, and family-serving systems in Colorado and nationwide. The central activities for the project include the development, implementation, and dissemination of the comprehensive approach which will strengthen the resilience and well-being of the workforce (Goal #1) and support a diverse workforce by advancing equity and addressing race-based traumatic stress in the workplace (Goal #2). These efforts will be complemented by improving the knowledge and skills of the workforce to care for children and families impacted by trauma with a lens of equity (Goal #3). Additionally, the project will develop materials addressing the above outcomes for national dissemination in partnership with the NCTSN (Goal #4). The comprehensive approach will be evaluated using equitable evaluation principles and refined to ensure effectiveness. Measurable objectives include the following: 1) at least 500 people complete the 16-hour Strengthening Resilience to Prevent and Address STS training series and 80% of those will show decreases in rates of burnout and STS; 2) at least 200 supervisors in the behavioral health, education, and child-, youth-, and family-serving systems complete Trauma-Informed Supervision training; 3) 100 supervisors and administrators and 200 staff complete the From Historical Trauma to Modern Oppression: Understanding Racism, Race-Based Traumatic Stress, and Cultural Healing module; 4) 20 agencies participate in a Zoom-facilitated Community of Practice and coaching and 80% of those agencies will show improvements in workplace equity and increases in staff intent to stay, particularly among BIPOC staff; 5) materials for all 4 Strengthening Resilience modules and the Historical Trauma training are transcreated and piloted with native Spanish speakers; and 6) two asynchronous web-based trainings (one in Spanish) are developed.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
