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Examining Trauma-Informed Teaching and the Trauma Symptomatology of Court-Involved Girls

The Urban Review volume 51, pages 582–598 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Young women living in urban contexts, particularly those with involvement in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, experience significant barriers to academic well-being as a result of childhood trauma. To date, little research has been done to evaluate evidence-based, trauma-informed educational interventions to improve outcomes among these students. This study used survey data from a multi-year trauma-informed teaching intervention to quantitatively measure the well-being of trauma-exposed girls in an urban, trauma-informed school setting. The study explored whether girls at a trauma-informed school demonstrated significant changes in trauma symptomatology and whether these changes varied by race/ethnicity. As hypothesized, participants experienced a statistically significant decrease in trauma symptoms over the observation period. However, there were no significant differences in trauma symptom change based on race/ethnicity. Policy and practice implications are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Louisville, 206 Oppenheimer Hall, 2217 S. Third St., Louisville, KY, 40292, USA

    Shantel D. Crosby

  2. University of Washington, Room 211 E, 4101 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA, 98105, USA

    Angelique Day

  3. Clara B. Ford Academy, 20651 W. Warren St., Dearborn Heights, MI, 48127, USA

    Beverly A. Baroni

  4. Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

    Cheryl Somers

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  1. Shantel D. Crosby
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  2. Angelique Day
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  4. Cheryl Somers
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Correspondence to Shantel D. Crosby.

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Crosby, S.D., Day, A., Baroni, B.A. et al. Examining Trauma-Informed Teaching and the Trauma Symptomatology of Court-Involved Girls. Urban Rev 51, 582–598 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-019-00533-2

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Keywords

  • Trauma-informed teaching
  • Childhood trauma
  • Trauma symptoms
  • School-to-prison pipeline