Trauma Sensitive PracticesThe creation of trauma sensitive school is an all encompassing change that involves changes from the bottom to the top. It is not enough to have one effective staff member, while others lack the skills or desire to implement such practices. One ineffective staff member can undo the work of several years of progress. It is important that school teams work collaborative to identify the changes that are necessary to become a truly universal trauma sensitive school.
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Determining Needs |
Student Needs: Appropriate screening and assessments are needed to determine what a student's needs are in regard to addressing the effects of the trauma they have experienced. Although it may be through collaboration with outside agencies, schools must have the ability to identify what a student' needs are in order to effectively establish relationships and identify social and emotional needs.
Parental Needs: Often we do not think of parents having experienced ACEs, and the impact that has on their parenting style and overall skills of functioning effectively. Typically we are critical of their actions when they may be functioning to the best ability that they know how. |
School & Classroom Environment |
Nurturing Environments-
•Multiple invested adults •Relationship building is key •Responsive to need & wants •Positive emotional & physical stimulation •Gentle voices, positive interactions, sensory breaks, patience to allow slow changes Predictable Environments-
•Consistent emotional responses •Familiar places, people, and things •Routines •Clear expectations with consensual rewards and consequences •No reactive or punitive punishment Structured Environments-
•Defined physical spaces •Creation of personal spaces •Avoid unpredictable and adult-style changes in routine •Provide high level structure Enriching Environments-
•Increased social interactions •Narrate, explain, modeling thinking process •Allow quiet time •Integration of exploratory engagement activities •Allowing time for acclimating to environment •Sensory integration Creating Calm Spaces-
In creating a calm space it is important that a nurturing and caring adult be present to connect with students as they enter the space. In addition to providing access to calming items in the calm space, it is important that the adult work to develop high quality relationships with the students by providing interaction. When students express they wish to be not have interaction, the adult may just engage in parallel play with the items. The calm space should have soft or warm colors, a method of blocking outside noise, lighting adaptations, and/or calming music. Some items other items include:
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Skills to Teach |
Social and Self-Regulation Skills-
Due to the common issues that students who have experienced trauma exhibit (see Trauma Sensitive Practices Page/Tab), it is important that staff working with these students provide targeted skills instruction. Some skills and traits that are essential for excelling in academics include the following (Taken from The Trauma-Informed School: Step-by-Step Implementation Guide for Administrators and School Personnel - pages 45-46):
Mindfulness-
With the increased stressful situations that students experiences, it is beneficial to provide opportunities and times built into the day to implement and practice mindfulness activities. The majority of our students today face a barrage of high stimulating input throughout their day (technology, demands, extracurricular activities, stressers from school/home/work, friends), and society has devalued the importance of down time for our students. Building in times throughout day for calming, relaxation, and meditation can help reduce stress and anxiety. Some websites with mindfulness activities include:
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Integrated Movement |
All students benefit from movement throughout the school day but many of our students who have experienced trauma need this movement integrated into their learning. It is best if teachers are able to integrate patterned rhythmic movement into various academic task to increase student engagement and activate the senses. Some examples of patterned rhythmic movement being integrated can be found at:
https://www.pinterest.com/DAEichler/patterned-rhythmical-movement/ Integrating this type of movement into the various activities of day increases the students engagement level and also fosters social engagement with peers and adults, in addition to using their senses to learn new concepts. Additionally calming apps, such as My Calm Beat can be beneficial at soothing and helping student calm during crisis situations.
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System Induced Trauma / Retraumatization |
Often our students have experienced a traumatic event or set of events in which they have associated certain statements or actions from others as potential threats. These may be the tone or mannerisms staff use, certain items in the environment, or situations of neglect. As a result of this staff must be constantly vigilant to ensuring that their actions do not lead to the student experiencing a potential repeated traumatic event. This can occur in several common practices in the field:
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Adult Self-Care |
It is important that staff are aware of their own well-being. When staff work with students who have shared traumatic experiences, they can experience secondary trauma. Staff often need to feel supported and may need to meet with other staff to effectively resolve the effects of secondary trauma. It is important that staff carefully monitor and plan out activities and routines throughout their day and week to maintain their own self-care. Without staff monitoring their own self-care, there are further increases in the potential for staff burnout, damaged relationships with students, and students are prone to retraumatization.
See Resource Page/Tab for resources on Self-Care. |
Professional Development |
The Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative recommend that professional development needs to be done as a group. They also recommend that trauma sensitive schools must be individualized for each setting and each group of students. Additionally all staff in a school must be provided with training in the basic principles of trauma sensitive schools, with specific staff members receiving further in depth training in additional principles, techniques, and methods.
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