Trauma Responsive Child Welfare Systems - Paperback

Comprehensive Framework for Trauma-Responsive Child Welfare Practice

This reference provides a robust framework for introducing and sustaining trauma-responsive services and culture in child welfare systems. Organized around concepts of safety, permanency, and well-being, the text describes innovations in child protection, violence prevention, foster care, and adoption services to reduce immediate effects of trauma on children and improve long-term development and maturation.

Evidence-Based Foundations and Interventions

The framework includes collaborations with families and community entities, cultural competency, trauma-responsive assessment and treatment, promoting trauma-informed parenting, and working toward reunification of families when appropriate. Chapters address both direct practice with families and organizational culture development for child welfare agencies.

Key Topics Covered

• Trauma-informed family engagement with resistant clients
• Introducing evidence-based trauma treatment in preventive services
• Working with resource parents for trauma-informed foster care
• Use of implementation science principles in program development for sustainability
• Trauma informed and secondary traumatic stress informed organizational readiness assessments
• Caseworker training for trauma practice and building worker resiliency

Organizational Culture and Workforce Development

Dedicated chapters address staffing, supervisory, and training issues, planning and implementation strategies, and developing a competent, committed, and sturdy workforce. The text provides practical guidance on creating trauma-informed agency practice and organizational culture that supports both clients and staff.

Professional Applications

Trauma Responsive Child Welfare Systems assists psychology professionals of varied disciplines, social workers, and mental health professionals applying trauma theory and trauma-informed family engagement to clinical practice and research. The text provides strategies for creating trauma-informed agency practice and agency culture, making it a valuable resource for child welfare training curriculum.

About the Authors

Virginia C. Strand, DSW, is Professor and Founding Director of Children FIRST at Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. Her research focuses on child welfare and children's mental health, with recent publications in trauma assessment for children and transfer of learning programs for child welfare workforce development. She serves as PI representing Fordham on the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute.

Ginny Sprang, PhD, is Professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, at the University of Kentucky and Executive Director of the Center on Trauma and Children. She serves on the National Steering Committee of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), Co-Chair of the Secondary Traumatic Stress Committee, and Chair of the Terrorism and Disaster Special Interest Group of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Her scholarship focuses on clinical, forensic, and empirical aspects of traumatic stress and treatment efficacy for violence against children.