Starr Commonwealth has partnered with Statistics in the Community (STATCOM) at the University of Michigan for external validation of its program of work. Starr provides community-based programs and behavioral health services for children, youth, and families as well as professional learning for educators and clinicians in trauma-informed, resilience-focused care. Part of Starr’s mission is to increase accessibility to trauma-informed, resilience-focused, evidence-based intervention tools and programs.
STATCOM and Starr have collaborated on multi-year projects since their research partnership began in 2020. In their first project, STATCOM analyzed thousands of course evaluations submitted by participants of Starr’s foundational professional learning courses, including feedback collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study found that most enrollees found the learning experiences useful and beneficial, and overall, participants were highly satisfied with the content and materials of the course, the instructor, and the teaching quality. Further, most course-takers professed a mastery of course concepts, a willingness to take another Starr course, and would make strong endorsements of the course to their colleagues. Click here to read a full report of STATCOM’s analysis.
In another project, STATCOM conducted an external validation of Starr’s Trauma-Informed Schools Questionnaire (TISQ) administered to school staff members. The TISQ measures a school’s trauma-informed, resilience-focused practices, highlighting strengths while identifying areas where the school can add strength-based interventions to improve upon its efforts. STATCOM’s testing shows that Starr’s TISQ is both valid (accurate – measures what it intends to measure) and reliable (measures consistently), indicating that it is a quality survey instrument that schools can use with confidence to track implementation progress. A full report of STATCOM’s validity and reliability analysis is available at www.starr.org/tisq.
Currently underway is a project that involves measuring the impact of Starr’s Student Resilience and Empowerment Center program for middle schoolers. The immersive, half-day program provides students access to supports to learn, practice, and master new coping strategies for emotional awareness and regulation that can lead to improved health and well-being. STATCOM is in the process of conducting an analysis of three years of participant data since the program’s inception.
“We are so fortunate to partner with STATCOM at the University of Michigan for external validation of our work at Starr,” said Dr. Stacey Levin, Vice President of Operations & Impact at Starr Commonwealth. “Leveraging STATCOM’s expertise has been instrumental in building an evidence base that supports the effectiveness of Starr’s work, as we aim to ensure the delivery of high-quality offerings to those we serve. STATCOM’s support provides an additional layer of evaluation that amplifies the evidence of Starr’s impact. We plan to continue this extraordinary partnership for many years to come!”
“STATCOM students volunteer their time and expertise out of an innate drive to affect real change in our communities – something we share with Starr Commonwealth”, said Stephen Salerno, Co-President of STATCOM and PhD Candidate in the Department of Biostatistics. “Working with Starr has given our volunteers wonderful perspective on the importance of adopting trauma-informed practices and yet another timely example of just how prolific the need to understand data is across disciplines. We are thrilled to partner with Starr and look forward to more opportunities to collaborate!”
