Adversity, Trauma Symptoms and the Effectiveness of an Australian Individualised Developmental Trauma Intervention Program

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a therapeutic intervention program Take Two; designed to address developmental trauma experienced by Child Protection clients in Victoria, Australia. Replicating a 2010 evaluation study of the program, we utilised a Time 1—Time 2 design to identify the impact of tailored Take Two treatments informed by the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics’ (NMT™). Change in the overall sample was measured by the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC; ages 8–16 years) and Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children (TSCYC; ages 3—12 years). In addition, a sub-cohort of children with severe adverse infant experiences was identified using a developmental history of adversity tool; Part A of the Neurosequential Network’s Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT™) Metric. Treatment effects were also evaluated to determine the extent to which this potentially more vulnerable subgroup was improving. Significant improvement was found in the TSCC cohort (8–16 years) with effect sizes ranging from small to medium (d = 0.23–0.54) on TSCC sub-scales. The largest effects were found on Anxiety (0.54), which moved from sub-clinical to non-clinical. The TSCYC cohort (3–12 years) showed significant symptom reduction on all trauma scales with medium sized effects (d = 0.44–0.53), and the largest effect on Posttraumatic Stress-Total (0.53). In the sub-cohort experiencing moderate-to-severe adversity in infancy, effect sizes were small to medium (d = 0.15–0.59). Take Two interventions were associated with significantly reduced trauma symptoms even when children’s adverse experiences in infancy were moderate to severe, highlighting the benefits of NMT™ guided systemic and individually tailored therapeutic interventions.