Illinois Childhood Trauma Coalition

For questions or comments, please use this link to send an email to Gene Griffin:

Research and Evaluation Committee

5/1/06

0.) Conference Call on 4/7/06: Gretchen Cusik, Sharon Freagon, Karen Freel, Gene Griffin (convener), Cheryl Smithgall, Brad Stolbach, Paula Wolff.

1.) Purpose and Goals of the Committee-

A. Capture the various trauma-related research programs that are occurring in Illinois

B. Consultation on new research regarding

i. How trauma is defined or conceptualized,

ii. Indicators or measures of trauma

iii. Study designs

C. Evaluation of the Coalition projects

i. Coalition

ii. Committee action items

2.) Identification of One Action Item to Focus On in the Short Term

A. Capture the various trauma-related research programs that are occurring in Illinois

i. Develop a standardized format for reporting research

a. Description of project

b. Definition of trauma

c. Trauma measures used

ii. Explore website or other method of posting

3.) Selection of Committee Chair- Gene

4.) Schedule of Next Committee Meeting-

A. Call-in on Friday, May 19 at 1 p.m.

Illinois Childhood Trauma Coalition

Research and Evaluation Committee

1. Behavior Problems and Educational Disruptions Among Children in Out-of-Home Care in Chicago

Cheryl Smithgall, Robert Matthew Gladden, Duck-Hye Yang, Robert M. Goerge (2005)

Chapin Hall Center for Children at The University of Chicago

This study explores the intersection of placement in foster care and the emotional disturbance (ED) classification. It compares the demographic, placement, and educational experiences of students in foster care who are classified with an emotional disturbance (ED) with students in care who have other special education classifications, and with Chicago Public School students with ED who are not in care. The mixed-method study combined analyses of administrative data and interviews with caseworkers, special education staff, foster parents, probation officers, and mental health professionals. Study findings reveal a complex set of trends contributing to the overrepresentation of children in care among students with ED classifications. These children receive an ED classification after entering foster care at higher rates than other children, and children with ED classifications transition into permanent placements at lower rates than other students in care, even those with non-ED special education classifications. Analyses also revealed that a significant proportion of children classified as ED continue to display serious behavioral problems at school after receiving a special education classification. This study suggests that it is critical that both the education and child welfare systems work to identify problems early in a child’s educational career. Furthermore, interventions must address not just the problematic behaviors but also the core problems underlying these children’s behavioral issues.

Full Report is available at http://www.chapinhall.org

How Trauma is Defined or Conceptualized

While trauma is not the primary focus of this study, the study recognizes that trauma has been found to be associated with behavior problems among children and that children in foster care may have experienced trauma. Furthermore, the transition into care itself may be considered a traumatic experience and is likely to elevate stress or anxiety levels and potentially increase behavior problems. One main conclusion of the study is the need to identify the underlying causes of behavior problems among children in out-of-home care, including a history of trauma.

Measures or Indicators Used

Trauma is not directly assessed in this study; however, the study does assess the following education and child welfare indicators that might be associated with trauma:

The special education classification of Emotional Disturbance (ED)
violations of a school district’s uniform discipline code
disruptive placement events, defined as running away from placement, hospitalization, and juvenile detention

2. Strengthening Families: Through Early Care and Education in Illinois

DCFS (Kathy Goetz Wolf & Anne Studzinski); Metro Chicago Information Center

The overall mission and purposes of the Strengthening Families Illinois Initiative is to prevent child abuse and neglect and to promote the health and well-being of children and families by working with child care centers and child welfare agency staff to incorporate evidence-based protective factors in early childhood services and systems statewide. Illinois is one of seven states that are piloting this initiative. The evidence-based protective factors are:

· parental resilience

· involvement with an array of social connections

· adequate knowledge of parenting and child development

· concrete support in times of need

· healthy social and emotional development in children

In Illinois the collaborative initiative involves more than 25 partner organizations and state agencies including child welfare, child care, early childhood fields and child abuse prevention. The partners are working with 5 early childhood centers in the state who will fully implement the Strengthening Families Illinois strategies and who will serve as hubs for training that reach out and include at least 10 other child care programs in their geographic area in a learning network. These networks will meet regularly and will also have at least 7 days of training per year. Each participating program will also perform a self-assessment and develop an action plan for its capacity enhancement in this area. The five primary goals to achieve the mission are:

Assist more than 50 childcare centers statewide to concentrate their efforts to identify existing programmatic components that build protective factors and to enhance these supports
Integrate promising practices and systems infrastructure supports that build resiliency in children and adults and promote healthy social and emotional development in more than 50 childcare centers across the state
Build awareness of Strengthening Families Initiative among 80% of licensed childcare centers, 60% of child welfare agency front-line staff and among a broad audience statewide through partner agencies
Child welfare agency staff collaborate with all childcare centers participating in Strengthening Families learning networks in pilot communities to promote the health, well-being, and resiliency of all young children who have needs similar to wards
Strengthening Families ideas and practices are infused into state-level decision-making on early childhood as well as programmatic activities of partner organizations

How Trauma is Defined or Conceptualized

Since the Initiative is primarily about preventing child abuse and neglect related trauma, a definition of trauma has not evolved. Training of the child care centers, in addition to the protective factors, recognizing signs of family stress, and how to partner with families, includes promotion of positive social-emotional development, how to use a mental health consultant and collaborating with child welfare agencies. In FY 2007, DCFS and the Midwest Learning Center for Family Support will be adapting the training developed by DCFS to inform case workers and foster parents about trauma and how to best help children who have been traumatized for child care centers – and delivering this training in the pilot sites.

Measure or Indicators Used

Each of the Initiative’s goals has a logic model that includes strategies, activities, benchmarks, results and measures. The source of the measures and benchmarks includes:

confidential key informant interviews
parent questionnaire administered 3 times over the course of 2 years
pre-post program data surveys
program self assessments that includes action plans
quarterly reports on progress of action plans
evaluations of each training module
evaluation reports from monthly meetings of the hub center and participant child care centers

Metro Chicago Information Center (MCIC) will create data screens and data entry for the measures and will analyze the data and produce a final report.

3. Northern Illinois University Symposium on Trauma, Stress and Education

On June 14, NIU President John Peters in partnership with DCFS Director Bryan Samuels is convening approximately 30 experts from the child welfare, education, medical/behavioral health and court/legal communities to address what we know, what we need to know and the intersects between these professional communities that impact the educational lives of children in foster care. The symposium will be professionally facilitated toward the outcome of a research agenda to put medical science behind educational assessments and interventions for children who have been abused and/or neglected and thus may experience trauma and stress, leading to poor educational outcomes. Prior to the symposium, participants will receive a comprehensive literature review on trauma and education. The review will include a) the educational circumstances of children in foster care, b) the psychological and behavioral effects of the traumatic stress, c) neurobiological processes which result from childhood exposure to traumatic stress and abuse, d) assessment of children suffering traumatic stress, and e) interventions that improve the educational outcomes for children and adolescents in foster care. Associations among these five areas will be distinguished.

How Trauma is Defined or Conceptualized

Measures or Indicators Used

4. Northern Illinois University Educational Access Project for DCFS

The overall purpose of the NIU Educational Access Project for DCFS (EAP) is to promote academic success for every child who is or has been in the Illinois child welfare system. The primary areas of focus of the educational work are direct interventions with foster and adoptive children and youth through technical assistance; training; implementing strategies to ensure children have educational plans; and fostering communication between DCFS and school staff. To accomplish this, NIU has education advisors who serve as advocates in every DCFS region in the state. The advisors are located in DCFS offices so that they have direct access to caseworkers, families and students themselves. The advisors intervene in over 4,000 cases each year and additionally train over 4,000 child welfare and school staff as well as foster and adoptive parents. The NIU EAP has a secure web-based database in which advisors input information on the interventions made, issues identified in Administrative Case Reviews and trainings conducted. Monthly an electronic file with this information is sent to DCFS and this is incorporated into individual children’s Educational Passport, which indicates the educational issues that the child experienced and their resolutions. Additionally, EAP has recently begun working to establish a post-secondary education program to support students, who are wards and former wards, to identify issues that would be a barrier to academic success and offer them support by identifying resources to network with others and assisting them to access services available on the college campus. In Chicago, eighth and ninth graders are monitored and offered support to complete their freshman year which is often an indicator for high school graduation.

How Trauma is Defined or Conceptualized

Measures or Indicators Used

5. Northern Illinois University Review of the Educational Well Being of Children in Foster Care

Individual educational record reviews were conducted to examine the educational status of children and youth who are wards of the state of Illinois during the school years 2001-2002, 2003-2004 and 2004-2005. The total educational sample was 756 students, with160 students in round 1 who attended 148 schools in 53 school districts, 241 students in round 2 who attended 218 schools in 71 districts, and 355 students in round 3 who attended 318 schools in 147 school districts. There was no duplication of children and adolescents between rounds. Reviewers went to schools, school district offices and special education co-op sites to gather data. The highest number of locations reviewers had to go to find a single child’s record was six. The instrument used to document the data was developed based on several variables that determine school success (these variables are now included in the DCFS integrated assessment system and in the education passport).

Some of the findings include: a) more than two out of five students were in special education programs across rounds, b) the majority of students in special education programs had emotional disturbance (ED) and specific learning disability (LD) labels and the third largest category was speech and language impairment, c) the percentage of students performing below grade level in math and reading/language declined in successive rounds, d) in round 1, slightly over 50% of students in general education were performing below grade level in math and reading/language and nearly 80% in special education were performing below grade level, e) in round 3, approximately 45% of students in general education were performing below grade level in math and reading/language and 60% in special education were performing below grade level in math and reading/language, f) the number of students who were overage in grade declined in each successive round with the lowest percentage at 30%, g) the most frequently reported reasons for overage in grade were retention, attendance and medical issues, h) most of the non-promotional school changes were a result of changes in residence, i) students experienced more out of school suspensions than in-school suspensions consistently across the three rounds, j) the rate of in-school suspensions declined by half between rounds 1 and 3, k) across the three rounds, a total of ten students’ records indicated they had been expelled, l) the most commonly reported reasons for absence were illness, medical and dental appointments, skipping classes, and tardiness, and m) there was a small but steady decline in the percentage of students who were truant over the three rounds.

How Trauma is Defined or Conceptualized

Measures or Indicators Used