I have attached a letter of inquiry regarding a study I am completing. It would be valuable to understand if you have any psychological trauma-related or trauma-informed documents I can use for my study. This would predominantly match with policies and documents under mental health services. It would be great to hear from you if you can facilitate my request.
I am a support worker and PhD student currently looking into how trauma-informed care is conceptualised in the UK. As part of my research, I am interested in evaluating trauma-related tools in a mental health care setting and have been used by colleagues to mitigate the issues around the implementation of trauma-informed care principles within the organisation. With the hopes that we address potential secondary traumatic stress that staff burnout can impact on the service. I have copied in my “grey methods section” from my protocol so, it would help you understand the intentions of my study.
Grey documents
Grey documents will be defined as eligible policy documents under the relevant NHS policy document in the UK or by contacting the Human Resources department of the trust. Eligible training materials would be observed from e-academy online or face-to-face training or reading the trust bulletin board. MC (student researcher) would liaise with the learning and development team of the healthcare trust or related mental health professionals, such as a clinical director, division lead or manager for appropriate resource guidance across the region.
Purposive selection of grey documents
MC will actively search through this by contacting 3 National Healthcare Trusts and searching through web pages to assess if they meet the eligibility of a trauma-informed practice. Contents would then be screened by MC to explore if they meet the principles and working definitions of TIC practice. Titles and contents that do not meet the criteria for the PICOS section will be removed. Grey documents that are unclear would be screened for further investigation. Potentially relevant sources will be retrieved in full. The full text from selected documents will be verified against the PICOS criteria by MC. If MC remains unclear this would be resolved from a discussion with a second researcher.
To address objective 1, we will use criterion sampling to select the documents of the project who have direct experience working with mental health care services and are knowledgeable of the TIC principles. This could include mental health professionals such as psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and nurses. We will ensure the diversity of this sample by selecting participants from varying roles within mental health care settings such as frontline clinicians, policymakers, and administrators. Ensuring a comprehensive review of the multitude of perspectives on TIC tenets. For objective 2, we will use typical case sampling as we will focus on recognised experts in the field of TIC in the mental health care system. Objective 3 would then use criterion sampling and maximum variation. Using criterion sampling will enable us to explore documents that cover experts who are involved in the development of TIC initiatives, while maximum variation sampling ensures diversity within the sample to capture a range of perspectives and experiences related to TIC implementation and evaluation. In this situation, diversity can be defined as different organisational contexts within mental health care, including public sector organisations, integrated care systems, and specialised mental health care facilities, related to TIC implementation and evaluation. This may include selecting documents from different geographical locations, types of mental health care settings, and levels of involvement in TIC initiatives in the UK.
