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book, available to read online

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Trauma-Informed School Practices - Simple Book Publishing

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Trauma-Informed School Practices by Anna A. Berardi and Brenda M. Morton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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4 minute video illustrating impact of chronic stress on learning

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Understanding Trauma: Learning Brain vs Survival Brain

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Summary of ACEs research and helpful strategies for working with students impacted by trauma

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ACEs Literature Review Helpful Websites related to ACEs ACEs Connection
This "community of practice" focuses on trauma-informed, resilience-building practices to prevent ACEs. It includes a multitude of news, resources and social networking opportunities.
ACEs Response Toolkit
This site focuses on what we can do about ACEs and how to increase resiliency. The toolkit includes a number of great resources for individuals, families, communities, and professionals.
ACEs Too High
Includes general information about ACEs, numerous resources and resources on ACEs and child abuse prevention, and trauma-informed practices.
Adverse Childhood Experiences, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
This section on the SAMHSA website includes information about the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study, the relationship of ACEs to substance use and behavioral health problems and how to incorporate efforts between these fields, and other resources.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Includes information about child maltreatment violence prevention, risk and protective factors, details about the ACE study, and statistics.
Child Welfare Information Gateway
Provides a multitude of resources on child abuse prevention, strengthening families, and evidence-based practices.
National Child Traumatic Stress Network
Provides information about various topics about trauma including types, culture and trauma, economic stress, evidence-based treatment and services, and tips on creating trauma-informed systems.
The Resilience Project
This project from the American Academy of Pediatrics offers healthcare providers tools they can use to better identify, treat and refer children and youth impacted by ACEs. It also includes tools for communities, families, children and parents.
Trauma Informed Care, National Council for Behavioral Health
Includes an overview of trauma-informed care, resources on trauma-informed consulting and the infographic, How to Manage Trauma.

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ACEs Literature Review Helpful Websites related to ACEs ACEs Connection This "community of practice" focuses on trauma-informed, resilience-building practices to prevent ACEs. It includes a multitude of news, resources and social networking opportunities. ACEs Response Toolkit This site focuses on what we can do about ACEs and how to increase resiliency.

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For several years, John Snelgrove began his workweek with a lengthy fax from the local police, listing the home addresses where officers had answered domestic violence calls over the weekend.

Snelgrove, head of guidance services for Brockton (Mass.) Public Schools, would check those addresses against the district's student database. When a match came up, he'd alert the counselor at that child's school, who, in turn, would take a red envelope and deliver it to the child's teacher. Inside was a slip of paper with a student's name and a quick prescription for "TLC."

A Sunday night, disrupted by violence, panic, and 911 calls, surely will make it difficult for a child to settle down to learn on Monday morning. But, even more than that, researchers have found that exposure to unrelenting stress and repeated traumas can change a child's brain, making it easier to "fight or flee" from perceived dangers and harder to focus and learn. Understanding this neuroscience makes it possible for educators to create trauma-sensitive classroom.

"It's more than one or two children in your class of 28, it could be closer to 30 percent or more," Snelgrove tells his colleagues. But even children who haven't experienced trauma will benefit from the strategies that Brockton teachers and education support professionals have learned through years of training with the Massachusetts-based Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, and their partnerships with local police, mental health, and child welfare agencies.

"Be consistent, be kind, focus on connecting with kids," he urges.

The Traumatized Brain

Back in the 1990s, Dr. Vincent Felitti, working with very obese adults, discovered that a shocking majority of his patients had suffered significant traumas during childhood. Eventually, his work led to a mega-study, involving tens of thousands of patients, which showed the long-lasting effects of "adverse childhood experiences," or ACEs, such as child neglect or abuse, or a parent with addiction or imprisoned. Those children often grow up to be adults who are more likely to be sick, to be violent, to miss work, and to marry often.

Since then, it's become clear that the damaging effects of trauma are not saved until adulthood. It starts early and it affects students and teachers: in fact, kindergartners who have had tough experiences score below-average in reading and math, even when other factors like household income and parental education are considered, a study published this year found. Those traumatized 5-year-olds also are three times more likely to have problems with paying attention, and two times more likely to show aggression.

What neuropsychologists have found is that traumatic experiences actually can alter children's brains. In times of great stress, or trauma, the brain activates its deeply instinctive, "fight, flight, or freeze" responses, while dialing down the areas of the brain where learning, especially around language, takes place. When this happens over and again, especially in children under age 5, the brain is fundamentally changed. Basically, it adapts for survival under the worst conditions.

"It's an appropriate adaptation to their circumstances," says Amanda Moreno, professor of early-child development at the Erikson Institute in Chicago. "But it comes at enormous cost to schooling, especially with the way we do schooling in this country, which is very standardized."

Traumatized 5-year-olds are three times more likely to have problems with paying attention, and two times more likely to show aggression.

Veteran Illinois special education teacher Kathi Ritchie knows what this looks like in a classroom: "You will see kids struggling with all areas of language, word retrieval, writing... memory suffers hugely. They tend to be forgetful. They don't remember content-area ideas that have been taught to them; the next day it's like they never were taught," she says. "The other thing that is huge is the behavior."

Living in a constant, fear-activated state of hyper-awareness means these children can be quick to rage, Ritchie has seen. In their subconscious efforts to self-protect, they often can be perceived as defiant, disrespectful or overly aggressive. Others may look like they're zoning out or drifting off, she says. "It can look like kids are shutting down, but their brain is telling them, 'you need to be safe.'"

Calming Colors, Safe Spaces, Mindfulness

So what's an educator to do? First, here's what not to do: Punish a child for showing the symptoms of a medical disorder. Trauma and stressor disorders can be found in the most up-to-date Bible of mental health disorders and diagnoses, the DSM-V, which means they are a real medical issue. Out-of-school suspensions are an inappropriate response and likely feed the school-to-prison pipeline.

Instead, what helps is to create a trauma-sensitive classroom where kids can feel safe and build resilience. Although Snelgrove no longer receives faxes from the local police because of revised confidentiality requirements, he hopes the "universal precautions" that Brockton teachers and education support professionals have embraced will catch any student who has experienced trauma.

Trauma-sensitive teachers often offer a "comfort zone" to their students, a safe space where kids can retreat and calm down. Sometimes it's as simple as a beanbag chair. Their classrooms also are neat and uncluttered. Think about how you feel coming home to a messy house, Snelgrove says. A little overwhelmed, right? It's worse for hyper-aroused children. Cool colors reign on the walls.

Ritchie also recommends teaching strategies that include predictable classroom routines with advance warning to students of any changes; asking students to repeat verbal instructions, using more written instructions, and also using visual prompts for multi-step directions, like a sticky post-it note on a desk. All students can benefit from short "movement breaks" every 30 minutes to "reframe the brain," she says.

Moreno's research currently involves the effects of mindfulness exercises on students in some of Chicago's roughest neighborhoods. Although her study is not yet complete, teachers and principals have told her that the time they are spending on mindfulness actually is leading to more time for instruction. Students refocus more quickly after transitions, and calm down after upsets. This makes classrooms more efficient, but it also helps with an even bigger goal: Helping children grow up to be healthy adults.

You will see kids struggling with all areas of language, word retrieval, writing... memory suffers hugely.

- Kathi Ritchie, special education teacher.

Apart from employing a mindfulness curricula, or classroom yoga practices, which also are gaining popularity, simply greeting students at the start of the day and "acknowledging their humanity" before diving into tasks will help, Moreno says. With all the demands placed on teachers, it can be difficult, even "radical," for teachers to slow down the pace of their classes and to take time with every student, but it will pay dividends, she says.

In Brockton, Snelgrove appreciates his district's leaders for investing in years of trauma-related training for teachers and education support professionals, and developing partnerships with police, mental health, and child welfare agencies. This isn't the stuff that appears on state-mandated standardized tests, he acknowledges. But it is the stuff that engages the "hearts and minds" of teachers and education support professionals, he says.

"We're not perfect, and I know we have a way to go, but when we talk about the 'whole child,' we mean it."

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How Trauma is Changing Children's Brains | NEA

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For several years, John Snelgrove began his workweek with a lengthy fax from the local police, listing the home addresses where officers had answered domestic violence calls over the weekend. Snelgrove, head of guidance services for Brockton (Mass.) Public Schools, would check those addresses against the district's student database.

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The National Child Traumatic Stress Network

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Provides trauma-informed school strategies in response to COVID-19. This fact sheet offers information on the physical and emotional well-being of staff, creating a trauma-informed learning environment, identifying and assessing traumatic stress, addressing and treating traumatic stress, trauma education and awareness, partnerships with students and families, cultural responsiveness, emergency management and crisis response, and school discipline policies and practices.

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Provides trauma-informed school strategies in response to COVID-19.

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Teaching Children from Poverty and Trauma

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Teaching Children from Poverty and Trauma

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Comprehensive guide to understanding the impact of poverty and trauma. Includes classroom strategies and teacher self-care

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Thoughtful blog post

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Education Week - Of, By, For: In Search of the Civic Mission of K-12 Schools

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If you want to really understand what it's like to be a teacher in American schools today, spend part of today in a public school with high concentrations of students living in poverty.

As any teacher will tell you in one of these schools - a growing number, thanks to the steady rise of the percentage of children living in dire conditions - the Monday after Thanksgiving is a particularly challenging (and important) day to be an educator. Whereas many of the children will be ready and eager to resume their school lives, some will return to classes having eaten little over the four-day break. And others will be numb from their extended stay in a world of chaos and dysfunction.

In these classrooms, teachers will spend the bulk of their day trying to meet these children's myriad needs, none of which will have anything to do with reading and math. That doesn't mean reading and math aren't important, just as it doesn't mean that a child's social conditions should excuse schools from trying to develop their academic minds. It merely means that schools are living, breathing communities and if we want policies that improve them, we need to understand how they feel and how they work.

Poverty matters, in other words, and poverty is not an excuse.

What strikes me on this Monday after Thanksgiving is how much the essence of our current debates over American education have become intellectual abstractions. Education is always and inevitably a personal and social process. For communities and their children, going to school isn't about raising national test scores or the merits of core standards. It's about social aspirations and personal opportunity, public hopes and private fears. And as any teacher will tell you, it's as much about ensuring that a hungry child is fed as it is about making them college- and career-ready.

Education is the land of the both/and, not the either/or.

Great schools give their students lots of different ways to celebrate their presence and engagement, and great policies don't force schools to choose between their students' social/emotional development and their overall effectiveness rating.

It's simple, really - education is about real people leading real lives in real places. And if school doesn't engage them, it doesn't work, no matter what the accountants and policy makers may say.
Follow Sam on Twitter.

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If you want to really understand what it's like to be a teacher in American schools today, spend part of today in a public school with high concentrations of students living in poverty.

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FREE SEL Curriculum

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Harmony SEL is a social and emotional learning program for Pre-K-6 grade students, accessible online and at no cost. Harmony fosters knowledge, skills, and attitudes boys and girls need to develop healthy identities, create meaningful relationships, and engage productively by providing SEL learning resources, tools, and strategies.

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Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Program, Activities & Curriculum - Harmony

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Harmony SEL is a social and emotional learning program for Pre-K-6 grade students, accessible online and at no cost. Harmony fosters knowledge, skills, and attitudes boys and girls need to develop healthy identities, create meaningful relationships, and engage productively by providing SEL learning resources, tools, and strategies.

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link to one school's strategy to increase connectedness

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Thanks to Northwest PBIS Network, Inc. for sharing this on Facebook.

Jackie Kennon - KCRG.com, Eastern Iowa, November 8, 2019

'No phone, new friends Fridays' is a new tradition at Iowa Valley Junior-Senior High School in Marendo. Principal Janet Behrens started it this year.

She says she noticed students at the school with their heads down, looking at their phones. Instead, she wanted them to look at each other, and learn face-to-face communication skills.

Students like junior Page Weick say they're seeing a difference. "Everybody enjoys it," Weick said.

Students get a colored card when they walk in the cafeteria that tells them which table to take a seat at. The tables also have conversation starters.

"I think it's fun, I like doing it," said Sahara Kanke, a freshman.
It's also a no phone zone.

"Every little thing helps in this day and age with all of the things that you have going on, all the pressures that they have with social media, it's nice to see them take a break from all that," Behrens said.

Read full story and see video here:
https://www.kcrg.com/content/n...suh2_xfzcGWlrXMnqlpE

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Principal starts 'No phone, new friends Friday' lunchtime tradition

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Thanks to Northwest PBIS Network, Inc. for sharing this on Facebook. Jackie Kennon - KCRG.com, Eastern Iowa, November 8, 2019 'No phone, new friends Fridays' is a new tradition at Iowa Valley Junior-Senior High School in Marendo. Principal Janet Behrens started it this year.

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curriculum and resources because EVERYONE matters

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Information and resources for addressing trauma in schools (K-12)

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Social Emotional Learning and Classroom Management

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Are you struggling with Children with big emotions. . . Overwhelmed administrators. . . Teachers burning out. . . Students feeling unsafe. . . Teachers

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Tips for Implementing Restorative Justice

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Tips for Implementing Restorative Justice

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Article about Restorative Justice in practice

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A teen starts a fistfight with a fellow student. Another brings alcohol to school. Another urinates on a fellow student's locker, and a fight ensues.

Three years ago at Le Grand High School, in Le Grand, CA, these students would have been immediately expelled or suspended. This year, they weren't. They didn't miss any classes. They made amends. They learned from their mistakes.

In 2010-2011, Principal Javier Martinez suspended 49 students and expelled six. Last year, he suspended 15 and expelled only one.

This school year, with the help of the Restorative Justice League, he's going for double zeros.

___________________

Le Grand High School is tucked on the edge of a town so tiny it has not one traffic light. Orchards and fields

that feed a nation surround it, creating a 15-mile physical - and psychological - moat between the town of Le Grand (rhymes with "free land") and the closest Central California city, Merced.

It would be so easy to look at this dot of a place and assume that nothing cutting-edge is going on at its high school. But that would be so, so wrong.

At Le Grand High School, all 487 students are given a tablet computer for the year. They're free to use cell phones (appropriately). One-third of the students participate in after-school programs, including martial arts and cooking. Where there used to be regular gang brawls, only two fights have occurred over the last two years. Half of last year's graduates attend college.

The school, which also draws students from the nearby communities of Planada and Plainsburg, isn't wealthy. In fact, the high school is 100% "free and reduced" - education-speak for the fact that students come from farm families (workers and owners) that live just above, at, or below poverty level. But Martinez is a grant-writing machine. Over the last five years, he's brought nearly $2 million to the school to support technology and programs for the students and their parents, including a restorative justice program.

At the core of this restorative justice program is the Restorative Justice League. Starting off as a dozen students flailing uncomfortably with their mission, they evolved into a tight-knit band that jumped in to help resolve a major school crisis. In doing so, they became the tipping point in the school's decision to jettison its zero tolerance policy, and replace it with a supportive approach to school discipline.

____________________

It's January 15, 2013, and the members of the Restorative Justice League erupt, flounce, drift, or stride into the classroom of Andre Griggs, who coordinates the league, the after-school program and the parent outreach program. They're all seniors with at least one other characteristic in common: They're willing to have Griggs push them out of their comfort zone this year.

______________________

He's teaching them to become involved with the individuals and the community around them in a way that makes them squirm. At the beginning of the school year, he started them off slowly by having them watch movies like "Pay It Forward", and figure out what they would do in real-life ethical dilemmas, as presented in the ABC News' series What Would You Do?.

They trained to become peer mediators by role-playing made-up conflicts, and by discussing the confrontations they saw at school and developing strategies to intervene appropriately. Then Griggs gave them assignments, such as talking with a student they had never spoken to. Each took a different approach. For example, Briana Biagi talked with a fellow student at a college entrance exam, while Yuhuen Ceja texted to as many of the students as she could: "Who wants to be my friend?" "That got a lot of people talking to me," she said.

_________________

Over the December school break, Griggs asked them to help three people they didn't know. All 12 followed through; some were braver than others. At one end was the student who donated money to a charitable organization. At the other end were students who risked face-to-face interaction with strangers: Two helped out at a local food and toy drive. Another helped a lost child find his mother in a store packed with Christmas shoppers.

Now that the students are four months into the training, says Griggs, they're taking more ownership. " They chose a name for themselves, a logo, and created a skit to present to other students," he says.

In January, the process seems painfully slow, without a clear goal in sight.

By the end of the school year, it's a different story.

By June, the Restorative Justice League students have trained 50 juniors, sophomores and freshman to be mentors for the 2013-2014 school year's incoming freshmen. They hosted a restorative justice conference for students from surrounding school districts. And, they have seven interventions under their belts.

Their first intervention was for a fellow senior, a gang member who got into a fight and broke his hand. At an intervention panel, the Restorative Justice League members listen to students who have committed an offense that would normally result in suspension or expulsion, offer ideas for restitution, and, if the students agree, follow up to make sure they carry through. In the case of this gang member, they asked him to write a formal apology, to clean up after all school dances, and to become involved in something positive after school. The process uncorked his creativity and changed his life. He founded the Modeling Club - a fashion club that attracted 20 student members who learned how to do photography and magazine shoots, and put on modeling events for the school. He's now attending Merced College.

In the video above, the members of the 2012-2013 Restorative Justice League at Le Grand High School demonstrate how restorative justice works in their high school. The problem - a student creates a disturbance in the classroom, even after the teacher has reminded the student of the respect agreement he signed. The two students involved meet with the teacher after school to review the options of the peacemaking process. The students choose the third option, to review the event and try to work out an agreement with a supervisor. A supervisor leads the first part of the peacemaking process. The Restorative Justice League is called in to offer alternatives to the traditional approach of suspending the students: to apologize to each other, and to help the teacher after school. Students follow through: they apologize to each other. The Restorative Justice League follows up with the teacher to find out if the students have performed their duties. RJL students: Briana Biagi, Jonathan Bravo-Zamora, Cesar Caalvillo Aguilar, Yuhuen Ceja, Stephanie Granados, Alfredo Gutierrez Perez, Roman Hernandez, Ajiah Hollis, Lina Martinez, Norma Martinez, Marivel Mercado, and Marycruz Vargas Vera.

__________________

Another intervention took place for two students who fought in the boys' locker room after one urinated on the other's locker. The Restorative Justice League suggested that they work together with the custodian to clean up the locker room, the lockers, and the restrooms, and to apologize to one another and to the custodian.

"It's been very successful," says Griggs. "Now the two boys are best friends and they learned to appreciate the custodian's work."

But the turning point for the school came when, prior to an exam, two students opened a teacher's desk drawer and took a photo of the test. After the test, the teacher found out. Not knowing who had seen the test, he failed the entire class. All the students in the class were told they would not graduate.

The Restorative Justice League decided they wanted - they needed - to become involved in what had become a school crisis. They developed a case for why they should be involved, why the decision of the teacher was unfair, developed alternative suggestions, and then presented their appeal to the principal and the teacher. The teacher was convinced to reconsider his decision. He voided the exam, used the scores the students had prior to the test for final grades, the two students who obtained the test confessed, and rest of the class graduated.

"Because of that experience," says Griggs, "we're now working on formally changing the school discipline policy and implementing restorative justice."

This is the result Javier Martinez had hoped for. "We want to empower our kids, and let them be the agents of change."

___________________________

Three years ago, as in many communities across California, gang activity plagued Le Grand High School, says Donna Alley, superintendent of Le Grand Union High School District. "Kids were trying to wear colors to school, a student was shot away from school on a weekend," she recalls. "We needed to have kids comfortable about coming to us, and a way for them to make amends for things they did wrong other than detentions, suspension or expulsions. Those don't change behavior, and we wanted their behavior to change."

She, Martinez, Griggs and a handful of others had come to the conclusion that the punitive approach to discipline was ineffective, as the data was clearly showing. "We are so used to a punitive system," says Martinez. "We send students to the office and it is expected that a kid will be immediately suspended or expelled. But that doesn't work." The student misses classes, falls behind, and may not catch up. The student also has no opportunity to learn from the mistake.

____________________

"We need to know what that individual is going through in order to help them out," Martinez continues. "For example, the kid may be having a rough time at home because his parents are getting divorced. I'm a believer in second chances. What I want to do is figure out how to help the student deal with that problem so it doesn't happen again."

___________________

When a representative of the California Endowment told them about restorative justice and volunteered funding to implement a program, the school jumped at the offer, but not just because it took a different approach to school discipline. It also fit like a glove with two other major initiatives the school was implementing to engage students and their families - an after-school program and a parent outreach program.

The after-school program, supported by a five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education 21st Century Community Learning Center program, provides academic classes for students who need extra help in subjects such as math, English, civics, and history. It also funds several skills classes (culinary arts, cosmetics, multimedia production), karate and other martial arts, dramatic arts and transitional living, which focuses on health and transition skills.

___________________

A grant from the Parent Institute for Quality Education supports several free classes for parents, including English-as-a-second-language, Zumba, and how to help their children navigate the confusing path to apply for college and scholarships. The school also plans to purchase outdoor exercise equipment and redo their outdoor track for the use of parents.

"A few years ago, I would have been fired for opening our campus to the community," says Martinez. "But this idea of granting community members access to our school to improve the health of our residents came about because obesity is one of our major concerns - 44% of Merced County residents are obese."

____________________

If Martinez' role is grant-writer, change agent and fearless leader, Griggs says his roll is to be a connector: "I connect teachers with students. Students with teachers. Community with school. And I promote the programs."

________________

Of the three programs, it's not a surprise that the most difficult for some teachers to accept is restorative justice. "We understand that it's difficult to change," says Martinez, "especially in such a drastic form. We're asking them to drop everything they know about how to discipline students, everything their parents' generation knew about disciplining students."

They began by bringing in Ron and Roxanne Claassen, the gurus of the restorative-justice-in-education movement, and authors of the book, " Discipline That Restores ". In March 2011, the Claassens gave the entire staff an overview. The school board passed a resolution to support the restorative justice program, and in the spring of 2012, the first of three groups of teachers spent four days with the Claassens while substitute teachers took over their classrooms. The last group did their training in the spring of 2013.

"We've taken it in chunks," says Donna Alley. "We want to make sure we're all on the same page together, and if there's any pushback, that we're able to deal with that."

And pushback they still have, even as the 2013-2014 school year began. One of the main issues was not having someone to immediately send a student to for help in calming down or working out an issue, especially since Martinez was not always available. But this year, because of another two-year, $150,000 grant, they were able to add the Thinkery, and hire someone to staff it.

Here's how the Thinkery fits into the restorative justice process:

At the beginning of the school year, teachers and students develop written respect agreements. The students agree to respect the teachers. The teachers agree to respect the students. The students agree to respect their environment - the school. Everyone signs them.

If there's a disagreement between the teacher and the student, or the student behaves inappropriately in class, the teacher reminds the student of the respect agreement. If the student cannot adhere to the agreement, he or she is sent to the Thinkery to talk things out with Fernando Maciel, the Thinkery's conflict resolution leader. If the teacher and the student need to engage in a mediation session, Maciel handles it now, instead of Martinez.

When the offense is serious enough, Martinez calls in the Restorative Justice League. So far this year, the 10 seniors have done one intervention, after a student brought alcohol to school. After meeting with the RJL members, the student agreed to do 50 hours of community service and enroll in an Alcoholics Anonymous program.

"This is more beneficial than expelling him," says Martinez.

Restorative justice doesn't cover all offenses. Bringing a gun or a knife to school is still an automatic expulsion, explains Martinez. "You're out of here. But for minor offenses, that's when restorative justice really matters."

_________________________

This goal of making sure every student is successful is a sea change, and it's slow, slow, slow. But Alley, Martinez and Griggs want to make sure it's solid.

"Over the last two years, we've changed the way that we discipline students," says Martinez. "We're firm, but respectful of the student's feelings. We listen. We don't shout. It's taking time, but we're moving in the right direction."

And the results, so far, are tangible.

2009-2010 - 49 suspensions, 14 expulsions

2010-2011 - 51 suspensions, 6 expulsions

2011-2012 - 33 suspensions, 4 expulsions

2012-2013 - 15 suspensions, 1 expulsions

When Martinez became principal in 2009, he says, "teachers used to send me students because they didn't have a pencil." He shakes his head. Now there are also fewer referrals because the teachers who have bought into the program are getting better at working things out with students in the classroom.

The students are changing, too. "We are seeing a change in culture, where students are accountable not only to teachers and the administration, but also to themselves," says Martinez. "The mere fact that they're trying to prevent fights from happening is significant. When somebody starts arguing with someone else, rather than gathering around and instigating a fight, they try to put a stop to it."

__________________

This year's Restorative Justice League students are advancing the program even further. Griggs hired one of last year's members to help him redo the curriculum, and they're moving faster through their training. They've started a freshman apprenticeship program, so that students can develop restorative justice leadership skills earlier rather than waiting until their senior year. And they're focusing on prevention, so that there will be fewer interventions.

They're also taking a step beyond restorative justice, which has a serious limitation: It focuses on students who erupt angrily, inappropriately, or are "willfully defiant". But many students are "invisible" - too shy, afraid or depressed to speak out or engage in class or after-school activities. This is the flip side of how kids deal with toxic stress they may be experiencing in their homes or neighborhoods. These students often drop out of school and never live up to their potential. So this year, Griggs, Martinez and other teachers are identifying "the invisibles", as Griggs calls them, and asking the Restorative Justice League and the mentors they've trained to start interacting with the "invisible" students to show them that the school is a safe place where they can trust others and get help when they need it.

Although the restorative justice program has been the most difficult to implement - because it is new and unfamiliar - it works because the after-school program and the parent outreach program also exist, says Griggs. "The highest crime rate and the time when most pregnancies happen are from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tying the after-school program to restorative justice makes each program successful. And involving the community reinforces support from the parents.

Griggs hopes that all three programs help teachers understand that their influence and the school's influence extend beyond the classroom, into student's lives and into their homes. "We really need to help out the students," he says. "The community needs to see that this school cares, and that bringing in their involvement is important, too."

"This isn't a program change," he says. "It's a culture change."

Oh....and the first members of the Restorative Justice League? They're all in their first year of college. Most are the first in their families to do so.
This is part of an investigative series into "right doing" - how some schools are moving from a punitive to a supportive, compassionate approach to school discipline. The series includes profiles of schools in Reedley, Fresno, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Concord, Vallejo and San Diego, CA; and in Spokane, WA, and Brockton, MA. The series is funded by the California Endowment.

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The Restorative Justice League of Le Grand High School jumps in to save the day

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A teen starts a fistfight with a fellow student. Another brings alcohol to school. Another urinates on a fellow student's locker, and a fight ensues. Three years ago at Le Grand High School, in Le Grand, CA, these students would have been immediately expelled or suspended. This year, they weren't.

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Three years ago, the story about how Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tried a new approach to school discipline and saw suspensions drop 85% struck a nerve. It went viral - twice - with more than 700,000 page views. Paper Tigers, a documentary that filmmaker James Redford did about the school - premiered last Thursday night to a sold-out crowd at the Seattle International Film Festival. Hundreds of communities around the country are clamoring for screenings.

After four years of implementing the new approach, Lincoln's results were even more astounding: suspensions dropped 90%, there were no expulsions, and kids' grades, test scores and graduation rates surged.

But many educators aren't convinced. They ask: Can the teachers and staff at Lincoln explain what they did differently? Did it really help the kids who had the most problems - the most adverse experiences? Or is what happened at Lincoln High just a fluke? Can it be replicated in other schools?

Last year, Dr. Dario Longhi, a sociology researcher with long experience in measuring the effects of resilience-building practices in communities, set about answering those questions.

The results? Yes. Yes. No. And yes.

In case you don't know Lincoln High School's story, here's a quick summary: In 2010, Jim Sporleder, then-principal of Lincoln High School, learned about the CDC-Kaiser Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study and the neurobiology of toxic stress at a workshop in Spokane, WA. The ACE Study showed a link between 10 types of childhood trauma and the adult onset of chronic disease, mental illness, violence and being a victim of violence. The Children's Resilience Initiative (CRI) organized a group of 30 people from Walla Walla, including Sporleder, to attend the workshop in Spokane. CRI is a community organization in Walla Walla that creates awareness about childhood adversity and encourages all sectors of the community - business, faith-based, corrections, law enforcement, education, etc. - to integrate trauma-informed and resilience-building practices.

Here's what Sporleder learned:

Severe and chronic trauma (such as living with an alcoholic parent, or watching in terror as your mom gets beat up) causes toxic stress in kids. Toxic stress damages kid's brains. When trauma launches kids into flight, fight or fright mode, they cannot learn. It is physiologically impossible.

They can also act out (fight) or withdraw (flight or fright) in school; they often have trouble trusting adults or getting along with their peers. They start coping with anxiety, depression, anger and frustration by drinking or doing other drugs, having dangerous sex, over-eating, engaging in violence or thrill sports, and even over-achieving.

Sporleder said he realized that he'd been doing "everything wrong" in disciplining kids, and decided to turn Lincoln High into a trauma-informed school.

With the help of Natalie Turner, assistant director of the Washington State University Area Health Education Center in Spokane, WA, Sporleder and his staff implemented three basic changes that essentially shifted their approach to student behavior from "What's wrong with you?" to "What happened to you?"

1. When a kid showed symptoms of stress, teachers intervened early to provide help - a quick talk, a longer chat with a school counselor, or intervention with a counselor at the adjacent Health Center.

2. For behavior that required more follow-up, such as not complying with a teacher after numerous requests, teens talked with Sporleder, who walked them through where they are in their decision-making ability: green, yellow or red. If they're fuming, for example, they're in the red zone, are unable to think clearly, need a day to think about things before they can discuss how to handle similar situations differently, and what actions will get them to that point.

3. In staff meetings, conversations switched from how to discipline kids to how to help them and their families.

Two years into the new approach, CRI brought in Laura Porter, co-founder of ACE Interface and former director of the Family Policy Council in Washington State, to work with Lincoln High teachers and staff to find out exactly what they were doing differently. They came up with four sets of new, interrelated practices:

1. Safety practices - Teachers provided an increased sense of safety to decrease trauma triggers and provided emotionally safe spaces.

2. Value practices - Teachers and staff held and expressed values of hope, teamwork, healthy family feeling, compassion and respect; more conversations that matter increased the quality of relationships that reinforced the values.

3. Conversation-relationship normative practices - The more "conversations that matter" that took place - the "What happened to you?" conversations - the more descriptions that occurred of behaviors of compassion and tolerance, the more behavioral norms were set and enforced.

4. Learning practices - Greater learning occurred due to fewer trauma triggers, generated by a greater sense of safety, due to different values and more 'conversations that mattered' between teachers and students, sustained by students' own reinforcement of different skills and new normative relations.

In Spring 2014, Longhi surveyed 111 students for their ACE scores AND resilience scores, and obtained attendance, grades and test scores from school records. The survey also asked students to reflect on their school and life experiences since coming to Lincoln High. (You can download the report from the Children's Resilience web site.)

The four types of students' experiences, related to the practices that teachers and staff put in place, included:

Learning to trust, confide, be liked and loved.

Learning to respect themselves and others.

Learning to be responsible for their actions.

Learning that others were proud of their academic achievements.

The three dimensions of resilience that increased included supportive relationships, problem solving and optimism.

The results? "Resilience trumped ACEs among students who had gained resilience at Lincoln High," says Longhi. "Resilience completely moderated" the negative impact of ACEs on students' grades and test scores.

Specifically:

72% percent of students with an initial low resilience level improved to average and/or high resilience levels.

Resilience made a difference even among higher ACE students: Higher resilience students had higher grades for all ACE groups.

Among low-resilience students, ACEs continued to affect their grades: Students with higher aces had lower grades.

Among high-resilience students, their ACEs did not impact grades: Grades were high, even for students with higher aces.

Although it measured a very small group (111 students) from only one school, this research is an important first step in measuring resilience and evaluating how resilience-building practices can help kids who have high ace scores perform better in school.

To give you an idea of what the differences were between a students who had little or no resilience, and those who had high resilience, here's a description from the report, in the teens' own words.

Teens with no or low resilience say:
Yes, I struggle with anger and depression

all the time - because I deal with it every day and it only gets worse

I punch walls - punch stuff

I get mad and want to fight people

I think and cry - cause I don't like talking with people

wWell, I don't cry, I hold my own... knowing nobody ever cares... really

I cry or bottle it up and freak out days later

I smoke weed

I cut myself

I take it out by yelling at my brother

I just like to have time alone. I'm more of a 'self-confine' person - I dislike to tell others about my problems because that would just get them involved

not be a bum

get a piece of paper that says I am better than the person without it

leave town

be homeless

die by age 20

The teens who have developed high resilience and are thriving say:

I used to not eat for 4 days at a time

I was too sad to do anything - felt worthless

I was always alone - no point in doing things

I was not doing good, but I had great friends to help me get through it all

I stopped smoking grew better relationship with my family- teachers realized that I was making a change...

The biggest change has been

my attitude - it has changed since I came to Lincoln - I look forward to every day

I have become a lot nicer - became close enough to a teacher... to talk about anything

I know that everyone has their struggles and all it takes is just to reach out to them and let them know it is okay

the only school that actually accepted me

being able to change my life with the support of staff - meeting people I wouldn't think I would have a good relationship with

when I was given support at Lincoln about what I can do - It helped me do more and work harder - to help me raise my GPA

when I got my grades - I achieved something I never thought I would until I came here

when I reached out for extra help in math which is something I probably would have been embarrassed about years ago

My school and future plans are

I want to graduate from Lincoln High School because I have come too far to quit

I also want to graduate because I can hold that as a memory that I was here as a part of Lincoln.

yes, graduate, so I can go to a 4 year college, learn more... make it into a career

I want to eventually get married and have children who will look up to me and be proud - give my children a good role model

But what about the 30 percent of the students for whom the changes at Lincoln made little or no difference?

"I don't think we can answer that from this work," says Teri Barila, director of the Children's Resilience Initiative. She offers an educated guess: "The impact trauma has on creating negative talk, negative scripts, negative outlook, is strong, and helping a student shift from that sense of failure is not easy."

In the meantime, more schools are implementing trauma-informed practices. With the support of CRI, trauma-informed practices are being introduced in Head Start and elementary schools in Walla Walla. Other schools that are implementing trauma-informed practices include Spokane and Seattle, WA; San Francisco and San Diego, CA; Blaine, MN; and New York City, NY. Jim Sporleder, who retired from his position as principal at Lincoln High School, has been working to help other high schools become trauma-informed.

What's useful to understand about Lincoln High School 's new approach is the context in which it made those changes - in particular, the large role the community played. The Children's Resilience Initiative and its many partners made a concerted effort to educate the community of Walla Walla about the new knowledge about human development, how punishment really doesn't help children learn, and how building resilience can give children hope and opportunity. They worked closely with the school to develop supports for students, including after-school classes and special services. The development of the Health Center, the clinic adjacent to the school, was the result of a community effort.

Barila and Longhi recently presented a strategy paper to Walla Walla school administrators. In it, they say:

Research shows that starting earlier, at younger ages, with trauma-informed practices in schools, with community-wide supports, leads to better results....Adding new programs focused on students may not be enough to break the intergenerational cycle of ACEs. Breakthrough impacts...can only come from collective impacts of changes in adult caregivers, including teachers and parents, and in the communities where students live."

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Resilience practices overcome students' ACEs in trauma-informed high school, say the data

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Three years ago, the story about how Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tried a new approach to school discipline and saw suspensions drop 85% struck a nerve. It went viral - twice -- with more than 700,000 page views. Paper Tigers, a documentary that filmmaker James Redford did about the school -- premiered last Thursday night...

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Paladin is a trauma informed care organization. It has taken us about three years to fully understand and implement a trauma informed care environment. And even after fully implementing this, we still have to work every single day to continue our efforts.

After starting this blog I realized it was going to be too long. So I am going to break it into a few pieces, the first one, this one, is about the planning process. We implemented as we were going, and modified our program as we learned more. I think some people might recommend that the planning phase be completed first, and that implementation follow. But we saw such significant needs in our students, that we kind of jumped in head first. It's really only in hindsight, that I can clearly lay out the planning phase of this process. When I write about the program deployment, it will be easier to see where the planning and deployment overlapped.

For those of you who have been through this process, or who are going through this process, I would love to know how it's going for your organization. And if you have been a trauma informed care organization for awhile now, I'd love any advice you might have on how to maintain this challenging and hugely rewarding work.

Here are the steps we took at Paladin:

Learn everything you can about your students. Depending on the size of your school, you could do this during the intake process, during new student orientation, or by using a survey. We use a survey. But we also update data as we learn new information that was not reported in the survey. For example, a student does not answer the question about having a parent in prison. But then a parent shows up for parent/teacher conferences and informs the teacher that the other parent will be out of jail in 2018.

Create or find a data collection and reporting tool. We were lucky because I happen to own a software company, so the school uses the software for free and we have modified it to collect information we need. But there are other options out there. It's best if you have the ability to update field names, tables, and reports based on your needs.

Once you start collecting data, identify the common issues and trends among your students. This will assist you in creating or modifying programs within your school to achieve the maximum benefit for students.

Disseminate the information to your full team. Don't try to communicate about each and every student with each and every staff member. You'll never get past this point if you take that approach. Make sure that you give the overview to everyone. What percentage of your students live in single family homes, live in poverty, are homeless? How far behind are your students, is there a correlation between risk factors and years behind in school? Also make sure that relevant and specific data is available for those who need it - counselors, special education service providers, case managers, etc.

Educate all staff on ACEs, toxic childhood stress, neural development and the impact of toxic stress.

Require all staff to read the CDC ACEs study and the MN Dept of Health ACEs study. The MN Dept of Health Study did not come out until after we had already read the CDC study. If your state has their own study, use it. But if your state has not done this yet, find a few studies from other states that are similar to yours.

Bring in experts in the field of ACEs and brain development. This was important. Even though we had a number of staff who had become experts, the team you work with everyday will not see you as an expert.

Use ACEs data to discuss specific incidents that happen at your school. This will help make the data real.

During staff training or in-service, assign teams to research ACEs, techniques to build resiliency, and the principles behind trauma informed care. Have those teams present their learning to the rest of the staff using any variety of presentation. We found role playing and skits to be the most fun.

Build "buy-in" from all staff - this is a must. If you have team members who do not value the information that was learned through the ACEs studies, or who do not believe that trauma informed care is a critical component to addressing ACEs, your efforts will be in vain.

Meet with individual leaders and small groups of staff and ask them to share the strengths of a trauma informed environment.

Also ask the small groups or leaders to identify potential issues that may need to be addressed. It's important to do this in a small group environment, particularly if you have any team members who are typically "contrarians" (the staff who always see things from a contrary point of view) or those who tend to be negative about new initiatives. Every team has people like this. And it is truly healthy for the environment, but it does require extra management through implementation of new programs.

Take the information to your board - depending on the size of your school, this may not be necessary. This was an important step for us because we wanted to do our own research, as we implemented the new model. Because we are a small school, we knew that any new program, particularly a program that might re-direct funding within our school was going to need to show that it was having a positive impact for our students.

Identify the programs that are already in place that will be part of your support system for students. Programs might include (this was our starting point):

Food and N utrition program

Homeless Liaison Support

Project Based Learning Program

Restorative Justice**** (if you have a traditional discipline system, this will need to change) This will be a blog entry of its own.

School counselor/social worker/school psychologists

Special Education Team

Student Advisors or Case Managers (this role becomes a critical component to manage student services)

Work Based Learning Program

Identify the unique roles for the different positions, the overlap and the communication and referral process between people and departments.

Identify new programs or staffing positions that need to be implemented in order to support the trauma informed care environment. Be willing to address this repeatedly. You will likely need to adjust your programming or staff configuration once the program has been implemented. That is completely normal. No two programs in schools will be identical. Some core components will be similar, but your students will have unique needs and your staff will have unique skills. Finding the right fit for everyone will give you he ability to meet the student needs and support the staff.

Programs might include (this was our list of changes needed, or new roles, and new programs that we needed):

Emergency support services for clothing, food, shelter, medical care, etc.

Environment - calming, homelike, natural lighting, plants, well maintained

Meals for all students, breakfast and lunch

Restorative Justice Teams

Primary coordinator

Trained circle keepers

First responders (crisis response team members)

Student Services Support Coordinator (links services to students when external support services are needed, doctor appointments, therapists, sexual health, social services, health insurance, etc.)

Student Success Coordinators (Case manager role for every student, previously advisors)

Transportation to and from school that took into account transient, mobile and homeless students.

Train, train, train more, and then train some more

There is a huge difference between educating someone about ACEs and trauma informed care, and training them to actually provide trauma informed care.

We needed help with everything from what words to use, to what tone of voice to use, to our body posture, facial expressions.... literally everything. We brought in an organization to train us specifically on word choices and body language, the program was called Verbal Defense and Influence. I personally do not think the name of the program does justice to the program. The training we received was one of the greatest factors in the staff's comfort to address conflict in a way that was respectful, compassionate, but also direct when needed to ensure the safety of all the students, even in the midst of a crisis. Some of our team became experts on this, and we go over what we learned a few times each year.

Role play scenarios.

Use specific examples and possible scenarios that may occur in your school and talk through the process, what we know, what we say, what we learn, and what we do in each and every situation.

Once you have deployed your new techniques, continue to review situations, talk through what went well and where improvements could have been made.

At some point in this process, you need to set a deployment date . Whether you decide to implement as you go, or to complete a full planning process first and then go for it, you will need to have communicated this with your entire team. I don't know that it is possible to get this entire process right the first time, so it's also important to talk with your team about the what-ifs, and to plan for those.

For example - what if a teacher who is upset because he or she is cussed at in front of other students, raises his or her voice at the offending student? Or what if a staff member simply tells a student to "get out of my classroom"? These things happen. In a trauma informed care environment we know that yelling, disconnecting or alienating students, actually causes additional harm. But at the same time, using a new set of parameters, and new language, isn't always easy. And that is even more true if a staff member is dealing with his or her own healing process, or does not have the support that he or she needs.

It's important to use the same principles with well meaning staff who make a few mistakes that you do with your students. There is obviously a difference, we have higher expectations of staff than we do of students, and I am not in any way suggesting that you lower your expectations, simply that you approach mistakes with kindness whenever possible. Change is hard, even when we are in control of it.

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Lessons Learned: Implementing Trauma Informed Practices in a School - Planning Phase

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Paladin is a trauma informed care organization. It has taken us about three years to fully understand and implement a trauma informed care environment. And even after fully implementing this, we still have to work every single day to continue our efforts. After starting this blog I realized it was going to be too long.

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videos and articles for classroom strategies

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Please explore the links and videos below to explore trauma-informed approaches that you can use to connect with your students as an educator. These resources are relevant to most anyone who provides...

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How to Help a Traumatized Child in the Classroom

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How to Help a Traumatized Child in the Classroom

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According to the Children's Defense Fund, one in three African-American boys and one in six Latino males born in 2001 will end up imprisoned sometime in his lifetime. These staggering numbers are tragic beyond words. But in order to change them, we have to change how we perceive the children behind the statistics.

One of us (Joyce) helps teachers and administrators do just this. Joyce works with the San Francisco Unified School District's Student, Family, Community Support Department and several underserved San Francisco schools through her award-winning UCSF Healthy Environments and Response to Trauma in Schools (HEARTS) program. While educators sometimes see a misbehaving child as a bad kid or a mean or oppositional kid, Joyce helps them to see that this is a scared kid. In other words, the child's behavior is the result of chronic exposure to traumatic events beyond their control.

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In addition to impacting behavior, trauma can wreak havoc on a student's ability to learn. Scientists have found that children who have been subjected repeatedly to trauma suffer from other social, psychological, cognitive, and biological issues, including difficulty regulating their emotions, paying attention, and forming good relationships-all of which make it very difficult for a child to succeed in school.

But trauma exposure does not seal one's fate. As the UCSF HEARTS program teaches, there are things that educators and other caring adults can do to mitigate the effects of trauma-and help at-risk students flourish rather than fail.
The scourge of complex trauma
Most of us have experienced some kind of traumatic event in our lives when a situation so overwhelmed us that our brain and body were unable to cope with it. Depending on our internal and external resources, most of us were probably able to recover. However, children who live in under-resourced communities-where domestic and neighborhood violence, racial discrimination, and poverty are more prevalent-can develop post-trauma difficulties after experiencing what is called complex trauma.

Complex trauma occurs through repeated and prolonged exposure to trauma-inducing situations, most of which take place in a care-giving situation. When a child can't rely on a close caregiver for comfort and safety-whether due to the caregiver's own emotional suffering or because the caregiver is the source of trauma-that young person's ability to metabolize and recover from toxic stress gets seriously hampered.

The metaphor Joyce uses in her work with schools to explain the effects of complex trauma is that of a vinyl record. When a song is played again and again, a groove is worn into the record. If, when playing a different song, someone accidentally knocks the record player, the needle will skip across the record and land in the deepest groove, playing that song yet again. Even when you reach the end of the song, sometimes the groove is so deep the needle skips back to play it once more.

Like a needle on a record player, complex trauma wears a groove in the brain. So when something non-threatening happens that reminds us of a traumatic incident, our bodies replay the traumatic reaction-mobilizing us to either run from or fight the threat, while shutting down other systems that help us think and reason. If this happens over and over, we become more easily triggered into that fear response mode, never giving our bodies time to recover. After awhile, as we adapt to this chronic triggering, our behavior can seem crazy or rude when taken out of the context of trauma.

For a child in a classroom, something as simple as the teacher raising their voice to get everyone's attention or accidentally getting bumped by another classmate can steer that child into this groove. When triggered, the child's out-of-proportion emotional and sometimes physical reaction often makes no sense whatsoever to the teacher, making it difficult for the teacher to respond appropriately.
Strategies for teachers
So what can teachers do to help students in their classrooms who have experienced complex trauma? In her work with educators, Joyce offers the following four strategies.

1) Recognize that a child is going into survival mode and respond in a kind, compassionate way. When you notice that a child might be having a difficult time, start by asking yourself, "What's happening here?" rather than "What's wrong with this child?" This simple mental switch can help you realize that the student has been triggered into a fear response, which can take many forms. For example, the student might:

Get a "deer-in-the-headlights" look

Turn red and clench their fists

Breathe more rapidly

Begin moving because their body is getting ready to run or react

Burst into tears or look as if they are about to cry

It's worth noting that not all kids will act out. However, for those who do, once you recognize the trigger, kindly and compassionately reflect back to the child: "I see that you're having trouble with this problem," or "You seem like you're getting kind of irritated," and then offer a couple choices of things the child can do, at least one of which should be appealing to them. This will help the child gain a sense of control and agency and help them to feel safe once more. Over time, if a student who is experiencing something that is frightening or harmful sees that you really care and understand, then they will be more likely to say, "I need help."

2) Create calm, predictable transitions. Transitions between activities can easily trigger a student into survival mode. That feeling of "uh oh, what's going to happen next" can be highly associated with a situation at home where a child's happy, loving daddy can, without warning, turn into a monster after he's had too much to drink.

Some teachers will play music or ring a meditation bell or blow a harmonica to signal it's time to transition. The important thing is to build a routine around transitions so that children know: a) what the transition is going to look like, b) what they're supposed to be doing, and c) what's next.

3) Praise publicly and criticize privately. For children who have experienced complex trauma, getting in trouble can sometimes mean either they or a parent will get hit. And for others, "I made a mistake" can mean "I'm entirely unlovable." Hence, teachers need to be particularly sensitive when reprimanding these students.

To use Rick Hanson's words in his presentation at the GGSC Summer Institute of Educators: "Nurture the hell out of these children." Capture those moments when the student is doing really well and point it out to build their self-worth: "Wow, I love how you sat at your desk for a whole five minutes" or, "Thank you for helping your classmate." When you need to re-direct the behavior, do so privately and in as calm a voice as possible.

4) Adapt your classroom's mindfulness practice. Mindfulness is a fabulous tool for counteracting the impact of trauma. However, it can also be threatening for children who have experienced trauma, as the practice may bring up scary and painful emotions and body sensations.

If you use mindfulness in your classroom, you might consider using the following adaptations that the UCSF HEARTS program and Mindful Schools created:

Tell students that, if they wish, they can close their eyes at the beginning of the practice. Otherwise, they should look at a spot in front of them so that no one feels stared at.

Instead of focusing on how the body feels, have students focus on a ball or other object they're holding in their hands-what it feels like and looks like in their palm.

Focus on the sounds in the room or of cars passing outside the classroom-something external to the body.

By breaking mindfulness practice down into these elemental components, the child is more likely to have a successful experience-and thus be more willing to practice in the future.

5) Take care of yourself. This actually should be number one! The metaphor of putting on your own oxygen mask first before putting it on the child is very true in this situation.
Next week's article will focus on what both teachers and administrators can do to take care of themselves and build a healthy school environment in the face of chronic trauma.
Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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How to Help a Traumatized Child in the Classroom

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Exposure to chronic trauma is having tragic effects on some of our students. How can educators help?

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Trauma Informed Classrooms and Transformational Schools (article)

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Trauma Informed Classrooms and Transformational Schools (article)

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Classroom Management and Behavior Strategies (ppt)

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Classroom Management and Behavior Strategies (ppt)

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Attachment and Trauma Network Resource Page

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Attachment and Trauma Network Resource Page

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This is a free video training resource designed to give anyone who works with children important trauma-focused information about how student learning and behavior is impacted by trauma and how educators and support staff can help students develop a greater sense of safety at school and begin to build new emotional regulation skills.

This 43 minute video comes with a discussion guide and handouts, to share in faculty meetings and professional development days, and provide opportunities for teachers and administrators to begin important dialogue about making their school more trauma sensitive.

Most importantly, the video provides science-based information on how chronic trauma impacts a child's nervous system. Rather than relying on a teacher's sympathy, the information helps educators to depersonalize the child's fear response and give a basis for the need to build safe relationships, no matter how difficult or disruptive the child.

As educators, we have to learn to not see the student's trauma response as defiance, disrespect, boredom, or intentional manipulation, but rather a protective response that requires safety in order to settle and help the child return to their "thinking" brain.

Here is the link to the video and discussion guide developed by Communities In Schools:
http://www.ciscentraltexas.org...rces/traumatraining/

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This is a free video training resource designed to give anyone who works with children important trauma-focused information about how student learning and behavior is impacted by trauma and how educators and support staff can help students develop a greater sense of safety at school and begin to build new emotional regulation skills.

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Becoming a trauma-informed school helps ensure your students feel safe. Many students who have experienced trauma have challenges with self-regulation and with learning. But, it's not always easy to recognize a student who may be suffering. Frustration can mask symptoms, causing those students to act out and make that behavior easy to misrecognize. So, it's imperative your staff know how to recognize the signs. Not sure where to start? Here are nine resources so you can start educating your team.

All around the world, TLC offers training courses, materials and conferences. Their mission is to provide all the tools that children, adults, families and communities need when getting through the devastating effects of trauma. The site also provides trauma informed training that includes certification just for educators.

These two incredible books- Helping Traumatized Children Learn and Creating and Advocating for Trauma-Informed Schools - discuss the impact trauma has on learning, behavior and school-wide relationships. Add them to your school library or, you can instantly download and handout to your staff.

This toolkit from The National Child Traumatic Stress Network has valuable information on the psychological and behavioral impacts that trauma has on students of all ages. It includes resources for parents and caregivers too.

This handbook is one your staff will use on a daily basis as it's filled with strategies to create compassionate classrooms and school-community partnerships.

This amazing web site/resource strives to improve the lives of high risk children. Bookmark it for ideas, new research and help when you're feeling stuck.

The site includes a selection of infographics, videos, blog posts and more that breaks down what's needed to become a trauma sensitive school. And, it's filled with thoughtful advice on listen to children and understand their pain.

Susan Craig's book Trauma-Sensitive Schools: Learning Communities Transforming Children's Lives is a great choice for an a school-wide staff read. It has strong ideas for educators ready to create a school culture based on safety and resiliency. Plus, pass along the tips on helping children self-regulate their emotions to every teacher in your school.

This important video highlights the five most important things that all educators know about helping their students through trauma and knowing when they have a student in need.

Trauma expert Dr. Caelan Soma, clinical director of the National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children, shares her best advice. She answers questions on dealing with a myriad of traumas students face including divorce, death, suicide, foster care and more.

Join our Facebook group for more conversation about and insights into the challenges of school leadership.

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Trauma Informed School - 9 Resources for Training Teachers in Trauma

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Becoming a trauma-informed school helps ensure your students feel safe. Many students who have experienced trauma have challenges with self-regulation and with learning. But, it's not always easy to recognize a student who may be suffering. Frustration can mask symptoms, causing those students to act out and make that behavior easy to misrecognize.