Journal of Rural Mental Health, Vol 49(4), Oct 2025, 331-343; doi:10.1037/rmh0000304
Childhood trauma impacts the behavior of children in classrooms and has lasting negative impacts on physical health, mental health, and well-being. School-based interventions can help mitigate the impacts of trauma and can improve lifetime health outcomes. Trauma-informed care (TIC) is a methodology that increases resilience while empowering children and trauma-informed schools provide safe and nurturing environments where all children have a chance to thrive. During this school-focused educational intervention, TIC training for staff and teachers was provided in a Rural Appalachian School District. The intervention was designed to teach K-12 public school educators and staff how to create a TIC environment. The aim was to assess changes in attitudes and perceptions of trauma-informed care and feelings of self-efficacy after a series of four 1-hr synchronous virtual trauma-informed care training sessions. As a result of this educational intervention, participants demonstrated positive changes in attitudes and perceptions regarding TIC (p = .003) and improved self-efficacy (p = .045), and the majority of the respondents were very satisfied or satisfied with the educational intervention. The results of this project demonstrate that implementing an evidence-based TIC curriculum for educators improves attitudes and perception of TIC and increases their comfort and perceived skills when working with children experiencing trauma. This demonstrates that synchronous, online, evidence-based TIC education provided to teachers and school staff can be effective and show high levels of teacher satisfaction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)