Abstract
Attendance will increase understanding of assessment outcomes using age-appropriate education and tools needed to build resilience and improve quality of life in a preschool population and their caregivers, all through a trauma-informed care lens.
Primary Author and Speaker: Kelle Deboth
Contributing Authors: Kelsey DeLisio
The purpose of this study was to determine: Does a manualized ‘Building Resilience’ program using a trauma-informed care framework improve coping skills, social emotional learning capacity, psychological well being and classroom behaviors in preschool children and their families? This was a quasi-experimental, wait-list design using convenience sampling with the intention of including all preschool students enrolled at the YWCA Cleveland Early Learning Center. 35 out of 40 students were officially enrolled with required documentation. Within each of the four classrooms, half were randomly selected to participate in the intervention group for the first eight weeks and the other half participated in the control condition. These groups were reversed for the second eight weeks. Caregivers participated in three sessions during the 8 week intervention condition. Results included analysis of eleven different tools including standardized NIH Toolbox and PROMIS measures. The majority were parent-report with the exception of GAS scores created and scored by the research team and a teacher-report measure of social emotional skills. The data was analyzed using SPSS. By the end of the eight week program, 87.0% of kids achieved a GAS score ≥0 for their emotion regulation goal. In addition, 70.9% and 93.5% achieved a GAS score of ≥0 for behavioral and participation goals, respectively. Of 13 caregivers attendees without missing data, eight (61.5%) reported a decrease in avoidant coping behaviors such as drug and alcohol use following program participation. Follow-up interviews with caregivers will be subject to qualitative analysis in fall 2024 to augment these findings. In conclusion, the program was found to be effective in improving outcomes of interest in both children and their caregivers. The impact on practice is the provision of a novel, manualized approach for practitioners, and also supports expansion and future efficacy studies of the program.
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