Program Goals

The goals of EQ2: Empowering Staff to Build Trauma-Informed Communities for Youth are:

For Direct Adult Care Staff:

• Learn the impact of early childhood trauma on brain development and how early adversity shapes self-identity, alters stress responses, and can result in relationship challenges.
• Increase capacity to recognize their own stress reactions and their default modes of responding to perceived threats (fight, flight, freeze responses).
• Build self-regulation skills including distress tolerance, cognitive reframing, response modulation, and attentional deployment to increase the likelihood they will respond in trauma-sensitive ways to youth’s traumatic stress reactions.
• Increase understanding of how their upbringing, along with their childrearing beliefs and attitudes, intersect with the principles of trauma-informed care.

For Supervisors:

• Develop capacity to coach and reinforce staff’s use of self- and co-regulation skills.
• Provide psychological support to direct care staff through restorative practices and mindfulness training as a means of buffering staff from the effects of secondary traumatic stress and burnout.

Logic Model

View the Logic Model for EQ2: Empowering Staff to Build Trauma-Informed Communities for Youth.

Essential Components

The essential components of EQ2: Empowering Staff to Build Trauma-Informed Communities for Youth include:

• The EQ2 Handbook:
• 6-module workbook:
• Becoming an Emotion Coach
• Understanding Trauma
• Building Relationships
• Where We Come From
• Preventing Crisis
• Repairing Relationships
• Each participant receives the workbook upon joining an EQ2 group:
• Interactive and self-reflective resource
• Remains with the participant throughout their employment at the agency and following completion of EQ2
• Can be used:
• To review skills
• To access the guided visualizations and meditations
• As a resource for supervision
• Contains:
• Mindfulness practices
• Cognitive-behavioral skill-building exercises
• Guided Circle-based questions
• Role-plays
• Resiliency building exercises
• Each module in the EQ2 Handbook consists of a supplemental material section which provides additional content to deepen exposure to themes and practices.
• The EQ2 Facilitator Guide contains:
• Everything in the EQ2 Handbook
• Introductory rationale section explaining the theoretical underpinnings of EQ2
• Clinical approaches to supporting staff growth and change
• Annotated notes in the margin of the text to support facilitators in best practices regarding implementation
• The EQ2 Learning Management System (LMS)
• Contains:
• An Introduction to EQ2
• 6-modules that explore the key clinical and theoretical aspects of each module
• Implementation strategies
• Approaches to overcoming barriers
• Each of the 6 discrete modules contains 4 studio-recorded video segments of Dr. Casarjian that run approximately 4-7 minutes in lengths, for a total of 20-30 minutes of running time per module
• Some of the animated videos on the app are also present on the LMS for teaching purposes.
• Facilitators must pass a brief assessment prior to moving onto the next module.
• The EQ2 Supervision Material:
• Can be found on the EQ2 Learning Management System
• Designed for supervisors to bring EQ2 skills and concepts into individual and group supervision as well as staff meetings
• Designed to support supervisors in scaffolding staff in these direct caregiving skills:
• Self-awareness skills
• Self-regulation skills
• Relationship skills
• Co-regulation skills
• The EQ2 Mobile Health App:
• Offers personalized support designed to help staff more effectively manage the challenging emotions that may arise when caring for trauma-impacted youth
• Includes:
• A structured goal setting feature that allows staff (alone or with their supervisors) to select weekly “EQ2” goals that align with trauma-informed, relational practices
• Over 50 short animated videos featuring:
• Key self-regulation strategies
• Information on trauma’s impact on the brain and behavior
• 40 guided visualizations and meditations
• An SOS button that provides a real-time, guided cognitive-behavioral self-regulation sequence
• A repository of mental health resources for staff to use as resources outside of the agency
• Can be used in a number of ways:
• A stand-alone adjunctive resource
• Homework that is assigned to participants based on assessed strengths and challenges using the Emotion Coaching Checklist
• In individual or group supervision to reinforce skills and practices
• EQ2+:
• A booster course offered on the app and the Learning Management System
• EQ2+ on the LMS consists of:
• Additional modules that offer facilitators and supervisors more:
• Practices
• Skills
• Resources that they can use to promote staffs’ retention of the skills learned in EQ2
• EQ2+ on the app consists of:
• A short, animated video
• A guided visualization
• An interactive quiz assessing participants’ levels of:
• Secondary traumatic stress
• Posttraumatic growth
• Strengths as a co-worker
• Other indices of workplace wellness

Program Delivery

Recommended Intensity:

Delivery is based on the training schedules of the agency. Each of the 6 program modules is approximately 90 minutes in length, but the content is designed to be divided into a greater number of shorter sessions if an agency does not have the capacity to pull staff off the floor for a full 90 minutes. Agencies are advised to complete no more than one full module per month. Booster material is available to provide additional training once the main 6-module program has been completed.

Recommended Duration:

6 months, though it is designed to be flexibly implemented in order to accommodate the diverse training and supervision schedules of residential facilities

Delivery Settings

This program is typically conducted in a(n):

• Community-based Agency / Organization / Provider
• Group or Residential Care
• Justice Setting (Juvenile Detention, Jail, Prison, Courtroom, etc.)

Homework

EQ2: Empowering Staff to Build Trauma-Informed Communities for Youth includes a homework component:

Participants are encouraged, though not required, to supplement the content of the 6-modules of the basic EQ2 program delivered through groups with content accessible on their EQ2 mobile health app. This consists of goal setting; guided visualizations and meditations; and short animated videos that reinforce skills and concepts.

Resources Needed to Run Program

The typical resources for implementing the program are:

The 6 EQ2 modules are designed to be delivered in a group setting and require a room that can accommodate between with 8-10 participants. The EQ2 program consists of a mobile health technology app which all staff members in an agency (regardless of position) may access with a smartphone.

Manuals and Training

Prerequisite/Minimum Provider Qualifications

There are no educational or experience requirements to facilitate an EQ2 group other than completion of the e-learning, train-the-trainer content.

Manual Information

There is a manual that describes how to deliver this program.

Program Manual(s)

Manual details:

• Casarjian, B. (2019). EQ2: Empowering direct care staff to create trauma-informed communities for youth. Lionheart Foundation.

The manual can be accessed by contacting the program manager at EQ2@lionheart.org.

Training Information

There is training available for this program.

Training Contact:

• Bethany Casarjian
  lionheart.org/lionheart-programs/eq2/eq2-online-facilitator-training
  Beth@lionheart.org
  phone: (781) 444-6667

Training Type/Location:

The EQ2 facilitator training consists of a 6-module, asynchronous, e-learning program. This learning management system is hosted on and can be accessed through the Lionheart Foundation website. Prior to an agency launching the EQ2 program, agency stakeholders including the primary EQ2 facilitators meet with the program creators to develop an implementation plan unique to the agency’s needs and staffing and training resources. Agencies are educated on the various components of EQ2 including the online supervision material.

Formal implementation support is provided throughout use of EQ2.

Number of days/hours:

EQ2 supervisors have access to the online supervision material but are not required to complete the facilitator training. The facilitator e-learning program takes approximately 3 hours to complete.

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Relevant Published, Peer-Reviewed Research

Additional References