The Resilience Alliance

The Resilience Alliance is a skill-based staff development intervention for child protective staff that focuses on improving job satisfaction, resilience, optimism and social support, while decreasing attrition, stress reactivity and burnout. The investigators believe that the intervention will enhance the capacity of child welfare workers to care for themselves, which will result in them providing better care for the children and families involved with the child welfare system.

The Resiliance Alliance will be implemented in two child protective offices, Manhattan Zone C and Brooklyn Zone B. Staff from two additional offices (Staten Island Zone A and Brooklyn Zone C) will serve as a control group. A web-based survey will be administered in the group receiving the Resiliance Alliance intervention prior to intervention, at completion of the intervention, and 3 months post completion. The control group will be given a two-part training (3 hours in total) on secondary traumatic stress. The control group will then be asked to complete the same survey as the intervention group.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Secondary Traumatic Stress
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Resiliance Alliance; Behavioral: Secondary traumatic stress training

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 357
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • New York
    • Bronx, New York, United States, 10468
      • Bronx ACS Borough Office
    • Brooklyn, New York, United States, 11216
      • Brooklyn ACS Borough Office
    • New York, New York, United States, 10027
      • Manhattan ACS Borough Office
    • Staten Island, New York, United States, 10301
      • Staten Island ACS Borough Office

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Administration for Children's Services (ACS) employees working at one of four offices: Manhattan Zone C, Brooklyn Zone B, Staten Island Zone A and Brooklyn Zone C
• Adults aged 18 years or older
• English-speaking

Exclusion Criteria:

• None

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
• Allocation: Non-Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention Group	Behavioral: Resiliance Alliance; The intervention is 6 months long & is delivered through weekly sessions held in the participating child protective offices. The sessions follow a 4-week cycle with the participants changing each week of the cycle: (1) CPS alone, by units; (2) CPS/Supervisor units; (3) Child Protective Manager and CPS/Supervisor units; and (4) CPSs & Supervisors/Managers separately. Participating staff are introduced to a resilience-related topic or skill, and receive a brief didactic training on that topic. Staff then engage in a group activity, which is designed to help them apply the new topic or skill to the workplace. Each module wraps up with a relaxation or exercise to help staff transition back into their work responsibilities; the facilitator can pick among the selection provided based on their sense of what would be helpful for the group. Staff are also given handouts and activities to do during the week.
Placebo Comparator: Control Group	Behavioral: Secondary traumatic stress training; These trainings will take place in two parts (for a total of 3 hours) and include an overview of secondary traumatic stress and its impact on child welfare staff, and some strategies staff can use to protect themselves from STS - essentially a "summary" version of what the intervention group will receive over the 24 weeks of the intervention. The investigators consider this training to represent "treatment as usual," as from our experience it is often how child welfare agencies address the issue of secondary traumatic stress among their staff.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Survey Over Time	The survey results will be compared between the two groups at three different timepoints as listed above	At baseline, upon conclusion of the intervention (6 months), and 3 months post-intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: NYU Langone Health

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: December 1, 2011
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 1, 2012
• Study Completion (Actual): July 1, 2012

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 7, 2015
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 10, 2015
• First Posted (Estimate): August 13, 2015

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): June 23, 2016
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 21, 2016
• Last Verified: June 1, 2016

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Stress, Psychological; Occupational Stress; Mental Fatigue; Fatigue; Compassion Fatigue
• Other Study ID Numbers: 12-00568

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No