Introduction of a child sexual abuse policy in a health district

Abstract

SUMMARY. Three one day workshops for 40 senior clinical staff were held to introduce a new Operational Policy on Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) and to provide them with a teaching package to enable them to run ‘cascade’ teaching sessions for other staff and colleagues. Part I of this paper describes an evaluation of the workshop; Part II describes an evaluation of the cascade The workshop evaluation showed that knowledge about CSA and policy issues was already good, but although that knowledge did improve after the workshop, attitudes about sexual behaviour were not changed by the workshop. Evaluation of the cascade also showed an increase in knowledge after the dissemination exercise

The role of therapist training in the implementation of psychosocial treatments: A review and critique with recommendations

“…R. Miller & Mount, 2001a), complicating comparisons across studies. Similar to the other categories of studies, results were compromised due to knowledge tests with unknown psychometric properties and ceiling effects (e.g., S. E. Anderson & Youngson, 1990), low response rates (S. E. Anderson & Youngson, 1990), and a lack of focus on the impact of training on consumers, with two notable exceptions (W. R. Miller & Mount, 2001b; Russell et al, 2007). Another study suffered methodologically from combining instrument development and assessment of knowledge and practice within the same study and reporting on both simultaneously (Byington et al, 1997).…”

“…Some have investigated the utility of specific training techniques such as workshops and computer-assisted training (e.g., S. E. Anderson & Youngson, 1990; Byington, Fischer, Walker, & Freedman, 1997; Caspar, Berger, & Hautle, 2004). Others have investigated the effectiveness of extended training curriculums with multiple components (e.g., Bein, Anderson, Strupp, Henry, Sachacht et al, 2000; Brooker & Butterworth, 1993; Henry, Strupp, Butler, Schacht, & Binder, 1993).…”

“…Most often, workshop attendance resulted in increased knowledge, but not significant changes in attitude, application of knowledge, or clinical skills assessed via behavior observation (S. E. Anderson & Youngson, 1990; Byington et al, 1997; Freeman & Morris, 1999; McVey et al, 2005; Rubel et al, 2000). Two studies (both Type 3) found that therapists reported improvements in practice (i.e., case worker assessment of substance abuse, assessment and treatment of suicidal behavior, Gregorie, 1994; Oordt, Jobes, Fonseca, & Schmidt, 2009).…”

“…Training only supervisors or a select group of staff who then train other staff has been studied by different names including the “Pyramid” (e.g., Demchak & Browder, 1990), “train the trainer” and “Cascading” models (e.g., S. E. Anderson & Youngson, 1990). Three studies focused on this method as is shown in Table 5, all of which were considered Type 3 studies, using single subject, multiple baseline designs and pre- and post- comparisons of training knowledge (n = 40) without random assignment.…”

“…None of these studies included follow-up assessments. The pre- and post-training study utilized non-standardized self-report measures to assess attitudes and knowledge (S. E. Anderson & Youngson, 1990). In contrast, the single-subject design studies used behavior observation methods to assess skills (Demchak & Browder, 1990; Shore, Iwata, Vollmer, Lerman, & Zarcone, 1995).…”