Special Focus Section

Child Maltreatment, the Journal of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, is preparing an upcoming special section of the Journal focused on the definition and evaluation of trauma-informed care (TIC) programs. Purpose of the focus section: A great deal of state, regional, and federal funding has been allocated to promote TIC across the multiple systems that serve youth and their families. At this point, there is no dispute that trauma has a significant impact on youth and their families and that access and availability of appropriate trauma-focused treatment services are a public health priority. However, there is no clear consensus on what is actually meant by ‘‘TIC,’’ nor a plethora of empirical data examining whether or not trauma-informed service systems actually improve outcomes for youth. An overarching aim of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network funded by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is to ‘‘promote a systematic approach to child trauma across child-serving systems in order to transform day-to-day practices, administrative guidelines, organizational readiness and commitment, provider and family knowledge and skills, and allocation of resources to better attend to the impact of trauma on the children and adolescents they serve’’ (National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, 2009). Thus, a trauma-informed system can be broadly defined as one which promotes increased awareness about the impact of traumatic stress across child-serving systems, increased awareness and access to evidence-supported assessment and treatment services, education of key providers and administrators to effect practice change, and strengthening of collaborations across the multiple professionals involved in the identification and service delivery of children and families affected by trauma. Increased understanding of the impact of TIC on a wide array of systemlevel variables as well as youth/family outcomes is clearly needed. Thus, the goals of this Special Section are to (1) clarify definitional issues related to TIC across a variety of agencies/ service sectors providing services to youth and their families affected by child maltreatment, (2) highlight different approaches and applications to developing TIC agencies and systems, (3) provide empirical support on the impact of these efforts, and (4) provide recommendations for further research on TIC. Child Maltreatment is soliciting empirical evidence-based manuscripts on topics related to specific approaches to TIC within agencies and/or across multiple service systems (e.g., child welfare, mental health, schools, and juvenile justice) that target maltreated youth and their families. Original empirical research papers, particularly those that clearly define TIC and evaluate the impact of this work on factors at the system, agency, staff, and/or consumer levels are of particular interest. Articles that include an examination of the costs or cost–benefits of TIC and/or demonstrate the impact of TIC on consumers (maltreated youth and their families) are also encouraged. All articles must provide a clear definition of TIC within agencies and/or across multiple service systems (e.g., child welfare, mental health, schools, and juvenile justice) that target maltreated youth and their families. The deadline for submitting manuscripts is April 5, 2015. Manuscripts should be limited to 30 double-spaced pages, including tables, references, be formatted according to the sixth addition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, and be accompanied by a letter requesting that the manuscript be considered for this focus section on TIC. Additional submission guidelines may be found in the journal and at http://cmx.sagepub. com/. The manuscript should be submitted to Child Maltreatment via the online portal ScholarOne Manuscripts at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral. com/childmaltreatment. First-time users will need to create an account before submitting. Follow the prompts in the Author Center to complete the submission. If you have any questions about this section, please contact Guest Editors: Rochelle Hanson (hansonrf@musc.edu) or Jason Lang (jalang@uchc.edu).