Blog

square bulletTIO’s Research Page Offers Opportunity for Collaboration and Collective Learning

February 23, 2021

From Stephanie Sundborg, PhD, Director of Research and Evaluation, Trauma Informed Oregon

With this newsletter’s theme focused on collaboration and mutuality, I thought it is a great time to introduce the research page on Trauma Informed Oregon’s website.  In the spirit of collaboration, my hope with the research page is to create a space where you can learn from and share with others who are doing the work of trauma informed care (TIC).  

As you’ve heard me say before, the evidence base for TIC, while accumulating, is still quite sparse. Now is the time when we need to come together and share our ideas, our strategies, and our results so that we can keep the momentum moving forward.  Hopefully, Trauma Informed Oregon’s (TIO) research page can be a resource for this collective learning; where we (TIO) can share findings of some of our own research and evaluation projects but also highlight the results you are observing in your efforts to be trauma informed.

The first place I will direct your attention on the research page is the Research and Evaluation Statement.  In this statement, TIO affirms our commitment to an antiracist approach using CLAS (culturally and linguistically appropriate services) standards as we build and disseminate knowledge.  We truly want this commitment to be reflected in all of our research endeavors so I invite you to offer your thoughts about this and hold us accountable.  Currently, our priorities are to learn more about the implementation of trauma informed policies, practices, and procedures—what is working and what is getting in the way, as well as ways to measure progress.  These priorities reflect where we see the field; however, we invite you to reach out if you have other ideas.  

The page has been divided into the following categories:

Research Papers This is an area where you can find published papers that we feel speak to the topics on our research agenda.  We hope to highlight papers from TIO collaborators so please let us know if you have published something you would like to share.

Research Notes These are less formal white papers that provide general thoughts and opinions related to TIC or data that isn’t summarized in a formal paper or report.  TIO often gathers data at our trainings and forums* and while this data collection may not be rigorous enough to be written up in a peer reviewed journal article, it is certainly worthy of sharing.  

*In case this made your antenna go up, please know data we collect in this way is anonymous and combined across lots of people.  Your identity is not attached to any data we gather.  If we ever collect something that is more identifiable to an organization or role, we will ask for consent.  

Evaluations from sites implementing TIC This section provides evaluation or progress reports that have been written for organizations implementing TIC. We will continue to post these (with permission from the organization) as we can because we heard your recent feedback that learning about what others are doing around Oregon is helpful in your own efforts to implement TIC.  

Finally, you will see the resources TIO has created to assist you and your organization as you work to implement TIC including the Roadmap to TIC, the TIC Screening Tool, the logic model, and the Standards of PracticeYou can find a short video that describes how these tools can be used and how they are similar and different.

Hopefully, this provides all of the information you need to navigate around the research and evaluation page.  As always, please contact us if you’d like to contribute to this page or if there is anything you would like us to know.  Thank you for your interest in TIC research and thank you for all that you do!!