Introduction to the Special Issue: Trauma-Informed Care for Children and Families

This special issue of Psychological Services includes 18 articles describing efforts to promote and provide trauma-informed care for children and families. Trauma-informed care is an approach to providing services that is sensitive to the possibility that children and families have experienced past or ongoing traumatic situations with implications for their current functioning and response to interventions. Installing and maintaining a trauma-informed approach in organized care settings requires effective planning, initial assessment, implementation, reassessment, and support that reflects an ongoing commitment to recognizing the impact of trauma on those being served. The articles contained in this special issue span a range of efforts in each of these areas, including the development and refinement of models of care and specific interventions, establishing quality assessment tools, and providing illustrations of lessons learned from attempts to implement and sustain trauma-informed initiatives. This introduction to the special issue provides a brief overview of these articles. The purpose of this special issue is to share current data and models of trauma-informed care and to encourage further development of collaborative models, interventions, measurement tools, and implementation efforts that lead to better services and outcomes for children and families who experience trauma.