Teacher Attitudes Towards and Experience with Trauma-Informed Care: Associations with Secondary Traumatic Stress

Abstract Teachers provide crucial support to the psychosocial, emotional, and academic development of students affected by trauma; however, such support can come at a cost to teachers’ health and attrition. The present study aimed to identify secondary traumatic stress (STS) levels of Australian teachers and investigate the relationships between trauma-informed care (TIC) training, years of general teaching experience, amount of experience teaching students affected by trauma, and five components of attitudes towards TIC with teachers’ STS. Australian teachers ( N = 124) were recruited to an online survey via snowball sampling on social media and email. Participants were predominantly women (86.3%), and worked at secondary (62.1%) and public schools (87.1%). The average age was 40.4 years ( SD = 10.53) and employment in schools averaged 15.6 years ( SD = 10.00). Results partially supported hypotheses, with teachers reporting high-to-moderate levels of STS on average, and more experience teaching trauma-affected students was significantly associated with greater STS. There were no significant relationships between STS with completion of TIC training and general teaching experience. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that self-efficacy in supporting trauma-affected students was the sole attitude component significantly associated with STS, contributing 10% of unique variance. Greater self-efficacy was associated with lower STS. Findings support future research into self-efficacy as potentially protective of STS. Practice implications include the urgent need for practical solutions readily available to teachers who are directly supporting trauma-affected students, and this must extend further than TIC training.