“We’re in this Together”: Trauma-focused inpatient family treatment: An evaluation of the KINGS program

Families affected by chronic adversity, trauma, and cumulative stressors often face problems that extend across generations. For these families, standard trauma-focused or parenting-focused interventions frequently prove insufficient, as safety concerns, complex symptom profiles, and unstable living conditions hinder sustained engagement and improvement. This dissertation examines KINGS (a Dutch acronym for Child IN Healhy System), an intensive inpatient trauma-focused family program designed to address such intertwined difficulties at the level of the whole family system.

Using five complementary studies, the dissertation (1) maps international models of Shared Family Care, (2) describes the characteristics and histories of families entering KINGS, (3) documents the intervention elements applied in daily practice, and (4–5) analyses patterns of short-term individual change and longer-term family outcomes as reported across multiple time points.

This dissertation contributes to the limited empirical literature on inpatient, trauma-informed family interventions and offers insights into how change unfolds in families with complex and multiple problems. The results underscore the importance of integrated, family-centered approaches and highlight the need for tailored post-program support to help families sustain progress in their home environments.