Northcentral University

Could you tell us something about trauma-informed care and how you got interested in it? TIC is about helping people with whom we serve that have had traumatic experiences. The gist of TIC is for a "carer" to understand the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) and possible current traumatic experiences when caring for individuals (e.g., consumers, patients, clients, residents). It is a deeper understanding of the associated positive psychological principles and client-centered psychological approaches that attempt to avert re-traumatization of "consumers." The principles of TIC, organized by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), are safety, trustworthiness and transparency, peer support, collaboration and mutuality, empowerment, voice and choice, and cultural issues. My interest in TIC started at what I thought was going to be an easygoing TIC conference presented by SAMHSA trainers in 2016. Little did I know that the conference was an experiential endeavor. It turned out that I had experienced a great deal of ACEs. With this revelation and subsequent understanding of TIC, I set forth a new way of treating our clients/staff in practice and organizationally. Fortunately, I was part of the training group suggested by the SAMSHA presenter to help implement TIC within our hospital. Through my involvement in the hospital-wide TIC implementation effort within an inpatient psychiatric hospital suffering from its own historical trauma issues, I was able to see the TIC organizational implementation effort from a unique lens of practitioner and a trauma-affected individual. Assessing TIC competency in an organization is where I am occupationally, and it is where I want to direct the topic of my dissertation. What kind of study design are you planning to use to study TIC and WHY? The study design that my professor and I agreed upon to study TIC organizational competency was the DELPHI method. The DELPHI expert consensus method is an effective research design for gaining expert consensus on psychological constructs. What have been some challenges in developing your dissertation topic? One of the biggest challenges for me in developing a topic for my dissertation is the unknown variable of where there is a need for more research regarding TIC organizational implementation and TIC organizational assessment. I sincerely thought that there was little research on assessing TIC organizational assessment. Once I completed a thorough review of the literature and an annotated bibliography, I found several studies on the implementation of TIC and the competency of TIC in an organization. This was discouraging for me, as I thought I may have to find another topic of study. In the end, I found an open avenue for future research utilizing a DELPHI study to assess each organization's unique cultural perspective on TIC organizational measurement. Student Contributions TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE (TIC) RESEARCH Terr y Adam Stewart, MS, CMHP Psychology PhD Candidate - Northcentral Universit y 7 NCUPA Fall Bulletin

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