Rebecca Golding
State University of New York, USA
Title: Evaluation of resource parents’ knowledge, skills and attitudes following participation in the “caring for children who have experienced trauma†program
Biography
Biography: Rebecca Golding
Abstract
This project evaluation was to determine if the National Child Traumatic Stress Network‘s “Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: A Workshop for Resource Parents†(RPC) program meets its stated objectives. A pre and post non-experimental design was used with a purposive sample of resource parents (n=9) recruited from the Gaining Resiliency Through Overall Wellness (GROW) Program and the Therapeutic Foster Care (TFC) Program, affiliates of Hillside Family of Agencies, located respectively in Auburn and Syracuse, NY. Project evaluation results indicated that the majority of resource parents rated the project intervention highly and recommended that other resource parents (defined as a non-biological caregiver) be required to participate in the project; 5 out of 7 parents felt that the curriculum assisted in their maintaining traumatized children in their home. The project implementations had a 100% retention rate. Quantitative measures demonstrated moderate effect sizes of resource parent’s trauma-informed knowledge, empathy for their child’s experience, parenting satisfaction and ability to allow a child more autonomy.