Evaluating social skills training for youth with trauma symptoms in residential programs.

OBJECTIVE: Youth who receive services in residential programs have high rates of traumatic exposure and associated symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Little information is available on specific social skills training that could be beneficial for youth in residential programs with PTSD. This study examined changes in behavioral incidents and psychopathology in youth receiving group home services based on training they received across three categories of social skills (i.e., self-advocacy, emotional regulation, problem-solving). METHOD: The sample included archival data on youth (N = 677) ages 10-18 years (M = 15.7 years, SD = 1.53). Hierarchical Linear Modeling was used to examine the frequency of disruptive and self-injurious behaviors over 12 months as it relates to reported traumatic symptoms at admission and the presence of the three types of social skills objectives. Analysis of Covariance was conducted to test whether the social skill objectives differentially predicted changes in youth psychopathology from intake to discharge for youth with low and high trauma symptoms. RESULTS: Youth with high trauma symptoms who received training on problem-solving skills had significantly greater decrease in emotional problems from intake to discharge compared to youth with high trauma symptoms who did not receive problem-solving training (d = -.54). CONCLUSION: Problem-solving training could be further developed and tested to maximize the support youth with trauma symptoms receive in trauma-informed residential programs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Monitoring implementation in program evaluation with direct audio coding.

This project explored the reliability and utility of transcription in coding qualitative data across two studies in a program evaluation context. The first study tested the method of direct audio coding, or coding audio files without transcripts, using qualitative data software. The presence and frequency of codes applied in direct audio coding and traditional transcription coding were compared and the two methods produced similar results. Direct audio coding was then employed in an evaluation study to monitor implementation and the method was found to be reliable. Implications are discussed with considerations for both researchers and practitioners.