Implementation of a workforce initiative to build trauma-informed child welfare practice and services: Findings from the Massachusetts Child Trauma Project

Children involved with Child Protective Services experience high rates of chronic and cumulative interpersonal trauma and adversity, referred to as complex trauma, that can have a profoundly negative impact on well being across the life course. Child welfare agencies face myriad challenges in addressing the needs of children with complex trauma. In response, the Massachusetts Child Trauma Project (MCTP) was launched as a statewide initiative to enhance the capacity of child welfare workers and child mental health providers to identify, respond, and intervene early and effectively with children traumatized by chronic loss, abuse, neglect, and violence. Specifically, this large-scale multi-system improvement effort is driving practice change through three key mechanisms in all regions of the state: (1) training child welfare staff and resource parents to recognize and respond to child trauma, (2) disseminating three trauma-focused EBTs in community-based mental health agencies via sequential cohorts of intensive Learning Collaboratives, and (3) implementing child welfare-led Trauma-Informed Leadership Teams (TILTs) that bring mental health providers, child welfare workers, and consumers together to sustain efforts to implement, maintain and spread trauma-informed practices. The article describes the development and implementation of this multiyear initiative and a number of key lessons learned to date.