Davis, Carol AJudge, Douglas2018-07-312018-07-312018-07-312018Judge_washington_0250E_18904.pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/1773/42103Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018Despite an increased awareness of the broad negative impacts of trauma exposure on the cognitive, academic, and social development of students, and the strong empirical support for supportive interventions at multiple levels, schools continue to struggle to implement such services for students. As the nation’s largest provider of mental health services, schools face a variety of complexities, including mismatches in the preparation and theoretical orientation of service providers, to school infrastructure, leadership, professional development, mission, and funding structures being inhospitable to effective delivery. Schools may benefit from the efficiencies in assessment, differentiation, and monitoring provided by the multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) framework. Specifically, trauma-informed interventions delivered to whole classes (tier 2), by teachers with limited specialized training are promising in terms of efficiency and sustainability, and remain limited. Equally promising for the school mental health literature is the integration of resilience theory, or the development of protective factors and the promotion positive adaptation in the face of risk. This mixed methods study evaluated the implementation of a 9-week tier 2 trauma and resilience curriculum developed by school administrators and teachers in a public alternative high school in the Pacific Northwest. 53 students completed surveys at pre and post-intervention measuring their perceptions of their own resilience using a 59-item composite measure. Seven teachers shared survey and qualitative feedback on the implementation of the intervention in terms of its acceptability, feasibility, appropriateness, and effectiveness. Results indicate that students demonstrated significant growth post-treatment on 2 of 12 measures of resilience, including sleep and coping skills frequency, but a decrease on one brief measure of resilience. In terms of implementation, teachers generally found the intervention positive (averaging 4.21 out of 5 on all rating 4 domains), with the highest scores for its appropriateness for students and this alternative school, strong scores for its acceptability and feasibility, and the lowest scores for its effectiveness. Teachers appreciated the relevance of the content, the focus on psychoeducation and coping skills, the iterative design/pilot/revise process used when building the course, the provision of clear lesson plans and students sharing feelings of empowerment because of the course. To improve the intervention, teachers wanted increased integration of both current events related to equity and the cultural representativeness of the video elements of the curriculum, and sought to decrease disruptions to the intervention based on their competing professional roles while teaching, and irregular student attendance.application/pdfen-USnonealternativeMTSSresilienceschool mental healthsecondarytraumaSpecial educationEducationThesis