Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) is an evidence-based, attachment-driven, trauma-informed intervention that was designed specifically to address the physical, emotional, and behavioral needs of children with a history of complex developmental trauma (Purvis et al., 2013). The goal of this project is to certify 150 foster and adoptive parents in Marion County Florida as TBRI Caregivers. In four 6-hour Saturday training sessions, foster and adoptive parents will be trained in best practices for working with their children to improve behavioral, physical health, and mental health outcomes. A pre and posttest design, as well as 6 months of monthly in-home follow-up sessions, will be utilized to measure intervention effects on wellbeing of both children and caregivers.
This grant will utilize all six trauma-informed principles (SAMHSA, 2014). Safety is a key component of TBRI, with one of the main foci being physical safety paired with felt safety. In terms of trustworthiness and transparency, “trust” is at the center of Trust-Based Relational Intervention. Through this model of care, foster and adoptive parents strive to help their children build and maintain trusting relationships. Peer support is established through the relationship between foster parents and the TBRI practitioners, who all have been or are currently foster and adoptive parents themselves. One of the main tenets of TBRI is that harm that is caused through relational trauma must be healed through relationships. As such, collaboration and mutuality are largely incorporated in TBRI. Children in foster care have often had their voices stifled and snuffed out. Empowerment, voice, and choice are all incorporated in TBRI through teaching foster and adoptive parents how to empower their children to take ownership of their decision-making and be included in the process of decision-making each day.
As the vast majority of children in foster care/adopted from foster care have already experienced trauma due to the situations that brought them to be removed from their families of origin, this particular intervention will be focused at the secondary level of prevention as outlined in Trauma-Informed Philanthropy (Volume 1). At this level of prevention, we are working with children who have already experienced trauma and are at-risk for negative health outcomes. The goal at the secondary level of prevention is to reduce the impact of the trauma children have experienced by connecting them to appropriate care. In the case of the proposed intervention, children have been removed from the environments/situations from which their trauma originated and have (hopefully) been placed with safe and loving caregivers. As such, it is important that caregivers be trained in a trauma-informed approach to childrearing in order to reduce the children’s risks of negative outcomes.
In the McLeroy, Bibeau, Stechker, & Glanz (1988) Social Ecological Model, the levels include individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and public policy levels. While interventions are needed across SEM levels for children in/adopted out of foster care, this particular intervention will address the organizational, interpersonal and individual levels. From an organizational standpoint, the Marion County Foster and Adoptive Parents Association is striving to make sure that all foster and adoptive parents within the organization are trauma-informed and utilizing an evidence-based intervention in working with their children. At the interpersonal level, this intervention focuses on relationally-based parenting practices that will help build trusting relationships between caregivers and children. At the individual level, foster and adoptive parents will be equipped with the tools, techniques, and strategies needed to successfully parent the children in their care. Foster and adoptive children will learn emotional regulation and coping skills through playful interaction, while developing the capacity for trusting relationships.
References
McLeroy, Bibeau, Stechker, & Glanz (1988). An ecological perspective on health promotion programs. Health Education Quarterly, 15(4), 351-377.
Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia, Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation, and United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey (n.d.) Trauma-Informed Philanthropy: Volume 1
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2014). SAMHSA’s Concept
of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach. HHS Publication 14 (4884) p. 1-20. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
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