The Evaluation of a Brief Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) Training Program for Church Children’s Ministry Workers: Comparing the Effectiveness of Face-to-Face and Online Delivery Modalities

“In response to the traumatic impact of Covid-19, this research equips the North American church to reach hurting children by determining the most effective and efficient way to teach trauma-informed care principles to children’s ministry staff and volunteers. ”

Team Members/Contributors

Robert Glenn Crosby California Baptist University Contact Me
Erin I. Smith California Baptist University Contact Me

About this project grant for researchers

The widespread traumatic impact of Covid-19 has drawn public attention to the prevalence and consequences of childhood trauma, already experienced by one-third of children prior to the pandemic. Although our previous research has demonstrated the potential for church children’s ministries to promote resiliency in the aftermath of trauma, available trauma-informed care (TIC) training programs tend to be both costly and ignorant of the unique structure and strengths of a church children’s ministry context. The dearth of evidence-based practices for church ministers and volunteers to develop the knowledge, skills, and strategies of TIC led us to develop and pilot a brief TIC intervention for children’s ministry workers. In the proposed research, we will extend the scope of this training intervention and ask a question critical to its scalability: What is the most effective and efficient method for training children’s ministry workers in the practice of TIC? Drawing from cutting edge research in TIC interventions, we will compare the effectiveness of training across three conditions varying in modality (online versus in person) and facilitator qualifications (professional versus ministry leader facilitation), with a waitlist control as a fourth condition. Our results will provide new data to address important questions about effective training for North American church children’s ministries and will contribute to increasingly important research and policy conversations surrounding TIC interventions.