An interventional study of The Developmental Interaction Workshop Series (DIWS) in Psychological Trauma, sponsored by Cornell University. Enrolling by invitation at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 8 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-01-28.
Sponsored by Cornell University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Supportive care
The first goal of this single arm clinical trial is to develop the Developmental Interactions Workshop Series (DIWS). The second goal is to learn about the DIWS's acceptability, feasibility, and usefulness by implementing it in agencies who provide residential care for children.
The main questions it answers are
Caregiving staff will
Children in care will complete brief surveys 2-4 weeks before and 4-8 weeks after their caregiving staff attend the DIWS.
Most U.S. children living in residential care (RC) have debilitating impairments regulating emotions and behavior and the success of treatment efforts for these children depends principally on caregivers' capacity to provide developmentally enriching, therapeutic care. While living in RC, the adults who care for these children during the critical hours outside of formal therapy play central roles in their treatment. Yet, RC caregivers receive little education about how to meet the unique relational needs of the children they serve and lack a clear understanding of their own therapeutic role in each child's rehabilitation. In addition, the most commonly-used training programs for caregivers in RC, as well as other out-of-home care settings, cover an eclectic range of topics without a specific focus on relational skills, and few have empirical support. Ultimately, in order for RC services to optimize children's rehabilitation and mitigate the long-term sequelae of developmental trauma, it is imperative to provide opportunities for caregivers to develop skills for eliciting developmentally enriching interactions (DIs) during their ordinary care routines. Toward that goal, the investigators propose two specific aims. Aim #1: Produce a video-based Developmental Interaction Workshop Series (DIWS) that enables caregivers to repeatedly observe and practice specific forms of DI and to create opportunities to increase their frequency during daily care routines. The DIWS will include two 4-hour sessions for caregivers and supervisors together, as well as one 2-hour and one 3-hour session for supervisors. A beta version will be implemented in one Residential Care (RC) agency, revised as needed, and then fully implemented in at least two RC agencies. Aim #2: Evaluate the DIWS using mixed methods (staff and child surveys, staff interviews, and ethnography) in 2-4 RC agencies to document preliminary evidence of its impact, acceptability, and feasibility. The investigators expect the DIWS to lead (1) caregivers to become more capable, motivated, and purposeful about eliciting DIs in their caregiving role, and (2) caregivers and children to perceive a greater prevalence of DIs during routine daily activities. Individual, organizational, and implementation-related factors related to uptake will also be identified. The DIWS will provide a developmentally-informed framework for understanding and enhancing the child-adult relationships in residential and other out-of-home care settings. Mixed-method evaluation results will provide the foundation for future RCTs of the program's efficacy, inform program improvements, and facilitate its wider dissemination.
139 studies on the registry are indexed under Psychological Trauma; 41 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 300 is above the median of 80 across 105 interventional studies indexed under Psychological Trauma.
Browse Psychological Trauma studies →Cornell University is the lead sponsor of 96 studies on the registry; 18 are open to participants now.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Exclusion Criteria
The two-part Developmental Interactions Workshop series is designed for adults who work with children in out-of-home care settings and the people who supervise these adults. Part 1 and Part 2 of this series include two sessions each: one session for direct caregivers and their supervisors, and one additional session for supervisors only. Part 2 of the workshop series should take place 3-4 weeks after Part 1. The focus of these workshops is helping caregivers to take advantage of the everyday and ordinary moments in daily life to create developmental interactions with children that help the child feel connected to others, capable, and autonomous. Supervisor only sessions will focus on the ways in which they can support and assist their staff to intentionally create these moments with children.
Behavioral: The Developmental Interaction Workshop Series (DIWS)
Many children living in out-of-home care have experienced ongoing trauma, toxic stress, and adversity. These experiences have had a significant impact on children's ability to regulate their feelings and behaviors, enjoy healthy relationships, and grow along typical developmental pathways. To help these children to begin to heal from their past experiences and resume a more typical developmental trajectory, they need repetitive developmentally enriching interactions with adult caregivers. This requires caregivers with the willingness and ability to engage in frequent daily interpersonal exchanges with children that meet their emerging developmental needs and strengthen their internal resources to engage, grow, and heal. The DIWS is designed to help caregivers take advantaqe of the everyday and ordinary moments in daily life to create developmental interactions with children that help the child feel connected to others, capable, and autonomous.
Change in Frequency of Caregiving Practices over the past week from prior to attending the Developmental Interaction Workshop Series to 4 weeks after the final workshop
This self-report measure of staff practices is adapted for the residential child care setting from the Involvement subscale of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (Shelton, Frick, \& Wootton, 1996, Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 253:317-329). The 7-point response scale for each of the 13 items ranges from 0=not at all to 6=Very Often, yielding overall scores ranging from 0=not at all to 78=very often on all items with higher numbers indicating more positive practices.
Time frame: From completion of the staff survey 2 weeks prior to the initial workshop to 4 weeks after the final workshop. The two parts of the workshop are delivered 3-4 weeks apart.
Change in commitment to the goal of increasing developmental interactions currently, from before attending the Developmental Interaction Workshop Series to 4 weeks after the final workshop
This self-report measure Goal Commitment is adapted for the current program goal from the Goal Commitment Scale (Klein, H. J., Wesson, M. J., Hollenbeck, J. R., Wright, P. M., \& DeShon, R. P. (2001). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 85(1), 32-55. The 5 point response scale on which respondents rate their agreement with the four items ranges from 0 =Not at all to 4=Completely yielding scores ranging from 0 to 16 with higher numbers indicating higher commitment.
Time frame: From completion of the staff survey 2 weeks prior to the initial workshop to 4 weeks after the final workshop. The two parts of the workshop are delivered 3-4 weeks apart.
Plan to share: No — The DIWS will be completed at 2-3 agencies that provide residential treatment for children. Given the magnitude of the commitment to implementing the Developmental Interaction Workshop Series at an agency, it is not possible to fully guarantee masking the agencies who participate. Thus, the potential to identify individuals in participant data is increased, particularly if information (staff versus supervisor, age and gender of the child) crucial to proper use of the data is included.
Eligibility is decided by the study team. Share this record with your doctor or contact the team directly.
No contact was published for this record. The registry link below has the sponsor’s details.
Get an email when the registry record changes — status, dates, results — or when someone posts here.
Sign in to followQuestions and observations about this study, from anyone following it. Not medical advice, and not a channel to the study team — their contact details are on the registry record.
Sign in to join the discussion. Reading takes no account; posting does. You choose a display name, and a pseudonym is the default.
Nothing here yet. If you are running this trial, taking part in it, or weighing whether to, this is the place to say so.
Cornell University