Assessing for Trauma in Home Visiting

Background

Funded by a HRSA Innovation Grant, Assessing for Trauma in Home Visiting aims to improve trauma-responsive practices among three Wisconsin home visiting programs. Home visiting staff receives a full-day training in trauma screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment or T-SBIRT, which was developed by the ICFW. Following the full-day workshop, the ICFW conducts monthly consultation sessions with each site to promote T-SBIRT model fidelity.

Since 2013, Wisconsin’s Family Foundations Home Visiting programs have administered the Childhood Experiences Survey or CES, an adverse childhood experiences screener. Developed by the ICFW, the CES expands the original adverse childhood experiences questionnaire to better capture the developmental context of low-income children. However, administering the CES effectively requires specialized skills, such as those reflected in the T-SBIRT protocol. Therefore, this current pilot teaches home visitors how to administer the CES within the context of T-SBIRT, thereby providing specific guidance on how to ask sensitive questions.

The current pilot includes a mixed-methods evaluation, assessing the feasibility and acceptability of integrating T-SBIRT within home visiting.