The Secondary Traumatic Stress Policy Analysis Tool
For this specific domain, you will be asked to use an existing tool developed by the University of Kentucky’s Child Trauma Center called, “The Secondary Traumatic Stress Policy Analysis Tool,” that was specifically developed for the purpose of rating an organization’s current policies and procedures through an STS lens.1
A few important notes on using this tool. You will be scoring each item. The score is there to provide you with a baseline and will allow you to measure change at different points in time. This is not a report card on your agency’s current policies. Do not be discouraged by your score, but instead see it as an opportunity to continue to grow and strengthen the work you have done. The process of creating policies begins with creating practices and protocols to address STS and then testing these changes over time, so that they can then be embedded into policy. As such, it is expected that the work on creating policies will be further on in the organization’s journey to address STS and will continue to require fine-tuning over time.
This STS Policy Analysis tool contains 30 questions and is divided into 4 sections. It takes approximately 30 minutes to complete.
- Part 1: Existing STS Policies—This section consists of 13 questions about existing policies that are specific to addressing STS at the organizational level.
- Part 2: STS Policy-Making Process—This section consists of 4 questions about how STS policies are created in the organization.
- Part 3: How STS-Related Policies Are Being Implemented, Communicated, and/or Enforced—This section consists of 5 questions that explore how well policies are implemented, communicated, and enforced within the organization.
- Part: 4 Policy Outcomes—This section consists of 8 questions that explore how much the STS-related policies are addressing STS, how consistently they are being implemented and includes questions on how the policies are being evaluated to assure they are addressing what they were intended to address.
Completing the Policy Analysis Tool
Follow these steps to rate your organization, access concrete and scoring guidance and indicate if this is an action item that you are planning to focus on.
- Mark your response to each question using the guidance document link as needed to answer questions about definitions or scoring.
- Indicate whether you want the item to be an “action item” for your organization or unit (a potential area to address now or in the future). An action plan template can be found on Step 4 of this domain.
- Add any notes as needed.
- Select “not at all” if the question is not applicable.
Once you complete the items in this tool, you will be presented with a summary of your responses including your rating for each item, identified action items, and notes. You will be prompted to print or save that summary. You can also have this summary emailed to you (if you provide your email when you first complete the tool). Go to Step 3: Strategies tab in this domain to access guidance on how to improve in areas that were rated “low.”
To begin, access the STS Policy Analysis Tool from the University of Kentucky Child Trauma Center: https://ctac.uky.edu/secondary-traumatic-stress-policy-analysis-tool