The organizational trauma-informed practices tool (O-TIPs): Development and preliminary validation

The goal of the study was to develop and validate a simple, short, easy to self-administer, and cost-effective tool to assess organizational trauma-informed practices (O-TIPs), by building on existing tools. The tool was developed through a series of steps involving detailed examination, selection, and modification of existing trauma-informed (TI) frameworks and tools, which resulted in a 31-item questionnaire with three domains and eight subscales. The O-TIPs was evaluated for known-group construct validity to determine the degree to which it could discriminate between groups of organizations that were higher and lower on the extent to which they were implementing TIPs, by administering it online to staff at seven federally qualified health centers at two-time points. The domains, subscales, and the overall measure showed high internal consistency and discriminated significantly between known groups of centers at baseline and follow-up. In addition, the tool captured change over time in the extent to which the organizations were implementing TIPs. These findings provide preliminary support for the future use of the O-TIPs tool by service-delivery organizations.