Creating a parallel process: A new methodological framework for conducting Trauma-Informed Evaluation and Research (TIER) in mental health settings.

New understandings of the pervasiveness of adverse childhood experiences and their attendant negative impact over the life course has led to a focus on the provision of Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) in mental health treatment. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration operationalizes TIC through six key principles: 1) safety, 2) transparency and trustworthiness, 3) peer support, 4) collaboration, 5) empowerment and, 6) sensitivity to cultural, gender, and historical issues (SAMSHA, 2014). However, there has been little attention paid to how these principles should be operationalized in the context of evaluation. This methodological article first identifies the need for evaluation of TIC programs to mirror the core principles of TIC and then offers specific strategies for conducting research and evaluation in accordance with them. The goal of this work is to define a set of principles for research and evaluation that utilizes the process to reinforce key tenets of TIC and enhance trauma treatment.

All in the family: parental substance misuse, harsh parenting, and youth substance misuse among juvenile justice-involved youth.

PURPOSE: Research consistently connects parental and youth substance misuse, yet less is known about the mechanisms driving this association among justice-involved youth. We examine whether harsh parenting is an explanatory mechanism for the association between parental substance use and parental mental health and youth substance use disorder in a sample of justice-involved youth. METHODS: Data were drawn from the Northwestern Juvenile Project, a large-scale longitudinal survey of mental health and substance misuse in a representative sample of youth in juvenile detention. Harsh parenting, child maltreatment, youth alcohol and cannabis use disorder, and parental substance misuse and mental health were assessed among 1,825 detained youth (35.95% female) at baseline, three-year follow-up, and four-year follow-up. RESULTS: At baseline, over 80% of youth used alcohol and/or cannabis; at the four-year follow-up, 16.35% and 19.69% of the youth were diagnosed with alcohol and cannabis use disorder, respectively. More than 20% of youth reported their parent misused substances and 6.11% reported a parent had a severe mental health need. Black youth experienced significantly fewer types of harsh parenting compared to White youth. Multivariate path analyses revealed harsh parenting mediated the association between parental substance misuse and mental health on youth alcohol and cannabis use disorder. Harsh parenting that does not rise to the level of child maltreatment mediated the association between parental substance misuse and mental health on youth alcohol use disorder; in contrast, child maltreatment did not mediate these associations. Multigroup analyses revealed the effect of harsh parenting on youth alcohol and cannabis use disorder did not vary across sex or race-ethnic subgroups. CONCLUSIONS: Harsh parenting represents one mechanism for the intergenerational continuity of alcohol and cannabis misuse and should be regularly assessed for and addressed in juvenile justice settings.

That Which is Essential has been Made Invisible: The Need to Bring a Structural Risk Perspective to Reduce Racial Disproportionality in Child Welfare.

The racial and ethnic disproportionality and disparity in the child protective system (CPS) has been a concern for decades. Structural factors strongly influence engagement with the child welfare system and families experiencing poverty or financial hardship are at a heightened risk. The economic factors influencing child welfare involvement are further complicated by structural racism which has resulted in a greater prevalence of poverty and financial hardship for families who are Black, Native American or Alaska Native (Indigenous), or and Latino/Hispanic (Latino) and their communities. The multiple decision points within CPS are an opportunity to reify or correct for bias in child welfare outcomes. One major effort to eliminate racial disparities and disproportionalities has been to enact standardized decision-making procedures that aim to control for implicit or explicit bias in CPS. The Structured Decision-Making Model's (SDM) actuarial-based risk assessment (RA) is the gold-standard of these efforts. In this conceptual article, we ask (1) How are structural factors accounted for in assessment of risk within CPS? and (2) What are the consequences when structural factors are left out of risk assessments procedures? We posit that the exclusion of race, ethnicity, and economic factors from the RA has inflated the importance of variables that become proxies for these factors, resulting in inaccurate assessments of risk. The construction of this tool reflects how structural racism has been overlooked as an important cause of disproportionality in CPS, with interventions then focused on individual workers and cases, rather than the system at large. We suggest a new framework for thinking about risk, the structural risk perspective, and call for a revisioning of assessment of risk within child welfare that acknowledges the social determinants of CPS involvement.

Contradictions and Their Consequences: How Competing Policy Mandates Facilitate Use of a Punitive Framework in Domestic Violence-Child Maltreatment Cases.

Research shows child welfare cases involving caregiver domestic violence (DV) continue to produce punitive consequences for non-abusive adult victims. This occurs despite the adoption of a supportive policy framework that emphasizes perpetrator responsibility for DV-related harm to children. Risk assessment procedures have been implicated in punitive outcomes, but we know little about how they shape child welfare workers' decision-making practice. Focusing on a state with a supportive policy framework, this paper uses grounded theory to examine how policy contradictions, procedural directives around risk assessment, and informal interventions produce punitive consequences for adult victims of DV and unmitigated risk to children. Data include state policy and procedural documents and interviews with child welfare workers describing decision-making in their most recent completed case and most recent case involving DV. Findings point to the need for active alignment of policies and procedures, greater integration of knowledge across practice areas, renewed commitments to differential response, and greater inclusion of DV specialists in child welfare settings.