Developing the Role of Occupational Therapy to Address the Effects of Early Childhood Trauma: A Community Capacity Building Approach

Abstract

Research supports early childhood trauma significantly impacts a child’s development and growth into a successful adult. As childhood trauma continues to be a public health issue in Missouri, community organizations need ways to improve and expand their trauma-informed and trauma-specific services to the children and families across the state. One way to address this is through implementation of an educational program. This program aimed to develop the role of occupational therapy within these sites to integrate the ideas of occupational therapy and trauma-informed care to improve and expand the sites’ services and promote the development of trauma-exposed young children. A series of three trainings were created, with each one focusing on a different topic to enhance the occupational therapy and trauma-informed knowledge of the participants. Two separate sites, one with 5 participants and one with 4 participants, were provided the trainings. Data was collected using pre- and post-surveys prior to and after each training and through retrospective interviews to evaluate effectiveness of each training, assess participant satisfaction, and to further inform the project impact. Based on the participants post-survey responses, results show a positive trend in the participants’ confidence and understanding of the training topics. The results indicate the training program was effective in improving the participants’ understanding and ability to implement more occupation-based interventions with trauma-exposed young children. This study supports the continued role of occupational therapists collaborating with community organizations to provide education on occupational therapy and trauma-informed topics to reduce the effects of trauma on young children.