History of the Project

The Early Trauma Treatment Network (ETTN) was formed in 2001 as one of the original 12 centers of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN). It consists of four sites located across the United States that focus on children under the age of 6 who have experienced traumatic events:

1. the Child Trauma Research Project, University of California, San Francisco
2. the Child Witness to Violence Project, Boston Medical Center
3. the Child Violence Exposure Program, Louisiana State University
4. Tulane University/Jefferson Parish Human Services Authority Infant Team

The ETTN's goals include examining the impact of trauma on young children and developing and researching effective intervention strategies for this age group. To accomplish this task, the ETTN decided to adopt a uniform assessment protocol to be used across the four sites.

The task of selecting measures is a difficult one and in order to base decisions on good clinical and research information, the ETTN developed a measure review template, a tool to assess the "goodness" of measures. Individuals from across the four sites gave feedback regarding the tool to ensure that it assessed the key dimensions relevant to young children and the diverse cultural groups served by the ETTN. This resulted in a very thorough template. Reviews of possible measures were completed using this template, and a uniform assessment protocol was developed based on these reviews.

In 2002, at the first NCTSN All Network Meeting, ETTN members presented the idea of a searchable Measure Review Database that would include reviews conducted using a uniform review template. We discovered that this idea resonated with others. Two centers, the Trauma Center in Boston, Massachusetts and North Shore University Hospital Adolescent Trauma Center in New York were working on similar projects. The centers had reviewed different measures because of their focus on different trauma types and age groups.

Chandra Ghosh Ippen, Joseph Spinazzola, Victor Labruna, and David Pelcovitz met and discussed the possibility of working jointly on this project. This meeting resulted in the beginning of the NCTSN collaborative efforts to develop a searchable database. The collaboration grew as members of other NCTSN centers joined and helped develop the review template and domain lists through their participation in the NCTSN Measures Committee. As new centers entered the Network, we discovered that many, such as the Children's Trauma Consortium of Westchester, had similar projects and were interested in collaborating.

In 2004, the project was selected to become an NCTSN Accelerated Project. A Measure Review Database team was formed that involved eight NCTSN centers; leadership from the National Center and SAMHSA; and the web skills of the NCTSN Director of Informatics and Technology, Peter Kung and NCTSN Website and Technical and Technical Support Specialist, Iliane Morrissey. The work of this team led to the development of this resource. We hope that this work inspires others to collaborate and help us grow the database into something we hope will truly move the field forward.

 

During the first meeting of the NCTSN Measures Committee, the idea for the project was shared, and a subcommittee focused on developing criteria for evaluating measures was formed. This subcommittee identified criteria for evaluating measures by reviewing the literature on psychometrics and measure development; consulting with experts in the field; consulting with NCTSN members regarding important psychometric, clinical, and practical properties of measures; and gathering information from other templates developed and used by NCTSN Centers, including templates from the Early Trauma Treatment Network, the Trauma Center, and the Childhood Violent Trauma Center, Yale/University of Connecticut Health Center. The goal was to develop a user-friendly measure review template that contained not only descriptive and psychometric fields, but information about the clinical utility and use of the measure with diverse populations. The template was submitted for review to NCTSN consultants. Once the final version was approved, subcommittee members developed a brief version of the template that would be available on the website and would contain searchable fields and other key information. A decision was made to provide the full template via PDF links.

Following the development and approval of this template, we began discussions with Dr. Beth Hudnall Stamm, the author of Measurement of Trauma, Stress, and Adaptation. Dr. Stamm was conducting a similar project, and we worked with a member of her team, Dr. Phillip Massad, to enhance the consistency of our two review templates, so that some day they might share data. This resulted in several modifications to the NCTSN template.

 

During the first NCTSN Measures Committee meeting another subcommittee was formed that focused on identifying key domains relevant to the field of child traumatic stress. The team examined different conceptual frameworks and identified domains relevant to the different frameworks. The domain list for this project is based on the listing identified by this subcommittee.