A Relational Workforce Capacity Approach to Trauma-Informed Care Implementation: Staff Rejection Sensitivity as a Potential Barrier to Organizational Attachment.

This study explores the relationship between staff rejection sensitivity (a psychological concept grounded in histories of loss and trauma) and organizational attachment among mental health agencies transitioning to Trauma-Informed Care (TIC), which is currently outside the focus of most research. Specifically, this study examines: (1) whether staff rejection sensitivity predicts organizational attachment; (2) whether staff turnover intentions account for the association between rejection sensitivity and organizational attachment; and (3) whether those associations hold once taking into account staff demographic factors (gender, race and ethnicity, education, and income)? Around 180 frontline workers in three Northeastern U.S. mental health agencies responded to surveys collected between 2016 and 2019 using the organizational attachment, rejection sensitivity and turnover intention measures, and their previous TIC training experience. Rejection sensitivity was significantly associated with organizational attachment (ß = -0.39, p < 0.001), accounting for 6% of its variance in organizational attachment. The relationship between these variables retained significance, and staff education significantly predicted organizational attachment, with higher education predicting lower levels of organizational attachment (ß = -0.15, p < 0.05), accounting for 22% of its variance. This study concludes that TIC transitioning mental health agencies' staff with a higher rejection sensitivity are more likely to express lower organizational attachment and higher intent-to-turnover.

Expanding the Trauma-Informed Care Measurement Toolkit: An Evaluation of the Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care (ARTIC-45) Scale with SUD Workers in PIMH.

Human service organizations (HSO) have increasingly recognized the value of employing trauma-informed care (TIC) in a variety of practice settings. Evidence suggests that effectively adopting TIC has shown client improvements. Organizational barriers to TIC implementation, however, exist. To improve TIC practice, the attitudes related to trauma-informed care (ARTIC) scale was developed to measure staff attitudes and beliefs towards TIC. The ARTIC has been widely adopted by researchers without evaluating its psychometric performance in diverse practice settings. The purpose of this study was to independently validate the ARTIC scale drawn from a sample of staff (n = 373) who provide services to substance-using parents. Psychometric tests were conducted to evaluate how the ARTIC performs with our HSO population. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis showed poor fit (X2 = 2761.62, df = 2.96; RMSEA = 0.07 [0.07, 0.08]; CFI = 0.72). An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to analyze how the data fit with our specific population, yielding 10 factors. Finally, a qualitative inter-item analysis of these factors was conducted, resulting in nine factors. Our findings suggest that measuring TIC attitudes and beliefs may vary according to field of practice and ethno-racially diverse workers. Further refinement of the ARTIC may be necessary for various services domains.