Changing Clinicians' Beliefs About Treatment for Children Experiencing Trauma: The Impact of Intensive Training in an Evidence-Based, Trauma-Focused Treatment

The child trauma field has seen a steady change in policy, funding priorities and dissemination efforts toward the implementation of evidence-based treatments (EBTs). Despite this shift, many clinicians remain untrained in these practices, which may speak to both a lack of awareness regarding this shift, and difficulty altering their fundamental beliefs about how therapy should be conducted. The current study sought to examine whether clinicians' fundamental beliefs regarding a nondirective/unstructured or directive/structured approach to therapy, and children's abilities to verbally express their trauma, could change after undergoing intensive training in a trauma-focused EBT. Results showed that clinicians receiving intensive training in Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) reported a significant shift toward holding a more structured/directive approach to treatment, and a greater belief that children are capable of verbally describing their traumatic experiences. Clinicians not receiving the training demonstrated no changes in their beliefs. These results are discussed in the context of encouraging greater utilization of EBTs.