Impact of an attachment- and trauma-informed training intervention for social care professionals

The importance of trauma-informed care has recently been recognised more greatly across the United Kingdom and has led to increased efforts to provide training to staff across a range of public sectors. Evaluation of training interventions is often limited to outcomes of staff knowledge and confidence. The current study aimed to evaluate the impact of an attachment- and trauma-informed training intervention for social work professionals on how they understand the young people they work with. 29 social work professionals attended training online and face-to-face. A pre-post design was utilised, with intervention and waiting-for-training groups, evaluating outcomes of professionals’ expressed emotion (EE), reflective functioning (RF), and attachment-informed stance using 5 Minute Speech Samples (FMSS), alongside attitudes towards trauma-informed care (ARTIC) and knowledge, confidence and worries regarding trauma-informed care. A novel Attachment-Informed FMSS coding system was developed and piloted showing good inter-rater and code-recode reliability. Significant interaction effects were found for knowledge (η p 2 = .623, p = <.001), confidence (η p 2 = .281, p = .003) and EE Warmth (η p 2 = .172, p = .025), significant increases were seen pre-to post-intervention for training group compared to waiting-for-training group, and training group had a significant increase in ARTIC scores pre-to post-intervention ( r = .412, p = .02). Significant effects of time were found for RF and attachment-informed stance but no interaction effect was found. Training outcomes may not have the intended effect of increasing professionals’ ability to be reflective or attachment-informed but still provide positive changes in knowledge, confidence and self-reported attitudes.