| Description |
This qualitative phenomenology was designed to examine how trauma impacts the behavior of youth in foster care (YIC) in public K-12 schools in Utah. Data was gathered through observations, artifacts, documents, and semi-structured iterative interviews conducted with six study participants, including a young adult who is an alumnus of Utah foster care and other foster care adjacent individuals, such as parents, educators, and others familiar with school discipline policies. Hickle's (2020) Trauma Informed Capability Approach was used to analyze interviews, observations, artifacts, and documents collected during my data collection period.; Three assertions emerged from the findings. The first assertion was that participants agree that the challenging behavior of YIC can be reflective of changes to the brain resulting from trauma at all stages of development. The second assertion was that a Trauma-Informed Approach (TIA) is unanimously considered the best approach for working with individuals with a history of trauma, yet barriers exist to implementation. The final assertion was the need for a consistent, whole-school trauma-informed approach to improve stakeholder collaboration and communication. The conclusions presented in the final chapter include recommendations for increased implementation of a TIA in K-12 schools in Utah as well as future work that could expand upon this study. |
