A Critical Look At Trauma-Informed Care Among Agencies and Systems Serving Maltreated Youth and Their Families
Abstract
The past two decades have witnessed an increase in programs targeting children and youth impacted by traumatic events, with a heightened focus on ensuring that all such programs and relevant service systems are trauma informed. While such efforts are laudable, trauma-informed care (TIC) is defined in a number of ways, limiting evaluation of these initiatives, specifically as they relate to the potential for improved outcomes or reduced costs often used to advocate for TIC. Widespread interest in TIC, despite an apparent dearth of empirical research, served as the impetus for this special section. Our goal was to identify the most rigorous empirical studies available. These six papers were selected based on their inclusion of a definition of TIC, focus on at least one component of TIC in a child-serving system, and availability of empirical data demonstrating the effectiveness of their efforts. In addition to introducing these papers, we share preliminary data from a brief, anonymous survey of child-serving professionals across various systems and roles to obtain feedback about definitional and conceptual issues related to TIC. While this special section provides a representation of available empirical work, significant gaps between research and practice of TIC remain, with important implications for future work.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
What is essential to a trauma-informed approach has not always been clearly operationalized.
“However, what is essential to a “trauma‐informed approach” has not always been clearly operationalized, and the approach and variations of the approach have been referred to in varying ways, for example, “trauma‐informed care,” “trauma‐sensitive,” “trauma‐informed system” (Hanson & Lang, 2016).”
From Effects of trauma-informed approaches in schools: A systematic review (2019) · cites this paper as Hanson & Lang, 2016
There is no consensus on the use of terms for trauma-informed approaches, which makes implementation and study challenging.
“To date, there is no consensus on the use of these terms, which makes efforts to both implement and study trauma‐informed approaches to care challenging.”
From Effects of trauma-informed approaches in schools: A systematic review (2019) · cites this paper as Hanson & Lang, 2016
Hanson and Lang (2016) identify three core domains essential to trauma-informed care: workforce/professional development, organizational changes, and practice changes.
“Hanson and Lang (2016) identify three core domains essential to trauma‐informed care that they derived from analyzing definitions and components across several organizations and authors, including SAMHSA and NTCSN: (a) Workforce/professional development (PD), (b) organizational changes, and (c) practice changes.”
From Effects of trauma-informed approaches in schools: A systematic review (2019) · cites this paper as Hanson & Lang, 2016
Cites
Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998) · American Journal of Preventive Medicine · doi:10.1016/s0749-3797(98)00017-8 · Cited by 18,943 · see citing works
The Lifelong Effects of Early Childhood Adversity and Toxic Stress
Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., THE COMMITTEE ON PSYCHOSOCIAL ASPECTS OF CHILD AND FAMILY HEALTH, C. O. E. C., Siegel, B. S., Dobbins, M. I., Earls, M. F., Garner, A. S., McGuinn, L., Pascoe, J., & Wood, D. L. (2012) · Pediatrics · doi:10.1542/peds.2011-2663 · Cited by 5,164 · see citing works
Finkelhor, D., Turner, H. A., Shattuck, A., & Hamby, S. L. (2015) · JAMA Pediatrics · doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.0676 · Cited by 1,264 · see citing works
The economic burden of child maltreatment in the United States and implications for prevention
Fang, X., Brown, D. S., Florence, C. S., & Mercy, J. A. (2012) · Child Abuse & Neglect · doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2011.10.006 · Cited by 1,122 · see citing works
Carrion, V. G., Weems, C. F., & Reiss, A. L. (2007) · PEDIATRICS · doi:10.1542/peds.2006-2028 · Cited by 327 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Trauma-Informed Practices in Schools Across Two Decades: An Interdisciplinary Review of Research
Thomas, M. S., Crosby, S., & Vanderhaar, J. (2019) · Review of Research in Education · doi:10.3102/0091732x18821123 · Cited by 483 · see citing works
Effects of trauma-informed approaches in schools: A systematic review
Maynard, B. R., Farina, A., Dell, N. A., & Kelly, M. S. (2019) · Campbell Systematic Reviews: Better Evidence for a Better World · doi:10.1002/cl2.1018 · Cited by 266 · see citing works
Measuring trauma- (and violence-) informed care: A scoping review.
Wathen, C. N., Schmitt, B., & MacGregor, J. C. D. (2023) · Trauma, Violence, & Abuse · doi:10.1177/15248380211029399 · Cited by 83 · see citing works
When it counts the most: trauma-informed care and the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Collin-Vézina, D., Brend, D., & Beeman, I. (2020) · Developmental Child Welfare · doi:10.1177/2516103220942530 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Principles of Care for Young Adults With Co-Occurring Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders
Spencer, A. E., Valentine, S. E., Sikov, J., Yule, A. M., Hsu, H., Hallett, E., Xuan, Z., Silverstein, M., & Fortuna, L. (2021) · Pediatrics · doi:10.1542/peds.2020-023523f · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Joiner, V. C., & Buttell, F. P. (2018) · Journal of Evidence-Informed Social Work · doi:10.1080/23761407.2018.1474155 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
- Authors
- Hanson, R. F., & Lang, J.
- Affiliations
- Medical University of South Carolina (US)
- Child Health and Development Institute (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hanson, Rochelle F.
- Venue
- Child Maltreatment
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2016-03-07
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 95-100
- ISSN
- 1077-5595 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-6119
- OpenAlex
- W2298159858
- Cited by
- 281
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 33 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 51 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 3
- FWCI
- 47.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Child Maltreatment (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Child Welfare and Adoption
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Social Sciences › Public Administration › Social Work Education and Practice
- Keywords
- trauma-informed care, maltreated youth, research-practice gap, program evaluation
- MeSH terms
- Child, Child Abuse, Child Health Services, Child Welfare, Humans, Social Work, Wounds and Injuries
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
