Setting the Scene

Way back in 2019, I took a series of Improv classes at a place called Happier Valley Comedy where I live in Western Massachusetts. How brave of me, right? On Tuesday nights a group – ages 15 to 65 – that started out as strangers would gather to engage in a smorgasbord of improvisational games and activities.

We have reached the halfway point of an innovative TIC initiative in the intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) sector.  So, it seemed like a good time to share out some of our achievements, challenges, and lessons learned so far.

In 2015 the Traumatic Stress Institute (TSI), in partnership with Dr. Courtney Baker of Tulane University, noticed a research-to-practice gap in the trauma-informed care (TIC) field. In short, TIC interventions of all sorts were trending, while at the same time there was limited empirical evidence to quantify the impact of TIC.

The Traumatic Stress Institute (TSI) of Klingberg Family Centers is seeking to hire contracted Faculty Trainers for our Risking Connection Trauma Training as adapted for organizations serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).

In August 2021, the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare officially added the Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care (ARTIC) Scale to their list of evidence-based measurement tools for child welfare. The ARTIC Scale received an assessment rating of “A – Psychometrics Well-Demonstrated,” the highest rating offered by the CEBC. It is the only measure of trauma-informed care (TIC) listed on the CEBC.

If there was ever any doubt that the IDD field is recognizing the critical importance of trauma, three brand new articles in the academic literature have put that to rest. They are all scoping reviews which summarize the professional literature on a particular topic and attempt to synthesize the current state of knowledge.

The Traumatic Stress Institute (TSI) is excited to announce the four agencies participating in the first-of-its-kind Pilot Trauma-Informed Care Learning Collaborative for Organizations Serving Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD).

The Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care (ARTIC) Scale has been approved for inclusion on the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare, a nationally recognized registry of evidence-based practices and measurement tools recommended for use in child welfare settings. CEBC’s mission is to advance the use of those practices and tools in child welfare settings by identifying, selecting, and maintaining an online clearinghouse of the tools.