A Trauma-Informed Workshop Targeting the Attitudes of Mental Health Providers in a Rural, Racially Diverse Community Bordering Tribal lands.

Purpose: This study examines a three-day trauma informed workshop with 32 mental health providers in a rural community that borders an American Indian reservation to determine if there is an association with positive trauma-informed care (TIC) attitudes.

Methods: Thirty-two workshop participants were invited to take the Attitudes Related to Trauma Informed Care (ARTIC-45) scale pre-workshop, post-, and six months- after the workshop. Results were analyzed at the group-level using t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests for subscales that were not normally distributed.

Results: Pre- to Post- (Time 1) findings reveal statistically significant positive changes in all ARTIC subscales. However, post-workshop to six months follow-up (Time 2) four subscales showed statistically significant decreases. This seems to be an indication that these trauma-informed attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs had gotten worse with time. There were three subscales without significant change.

Conclusion: The findings should be interpreted with caution but point to plausible implications related to the decline in trauma-informed attitudes such as, lack of ongoing training following the workshop, limitations in workforce and resources within the rural community, unaddressed implicit bias, and needing more organizational leadership buy-in and resources.