We are pleased to share our new video “Why We Need Trauma-Sensitive Schools”. This video highlights the importance of leadership—superintendents, assistant superintendents-principals, and educators—in creating the understanding and infrastructure that can support the team work among staff needed to support all children to be successful.
Educators and administrators in a trauma-sensitive school do their best to adapt to challenges flexibly and proactively so that the equilibrium of the school is maintained despite inevitable shifts and changes.
A study in Urban Education found “Students who reported feeling unsafe in the classroom experience a consistent decrease in math scores.” This highlights the importance of a safe school environment as a prerequisite for productive learning and provides insight into the relationship between feelings of safety in the classroom and academic achievement.
Trauma-sensitive schools help all staff to feel like they are part of a strong and supportive professional community that shares responsibility for each and every child while working as a team to address the impact of trauma on learning.
Teaching may be one of the most difficult jobs in the world, with expectations and demands coming from all sides. Teachers juggle content standards, the social and emotional needs of students, behavior, and often trauma, but they also are the first line of defense when students have mental health problems.
Teachers are often the first person children turn to when they are in crisis, and yet they are, as a profession, woefully unprepared to identify students’ mental-health issues and connect them with the services they need—even when those services are provided by schools.
During a recent event at the White House focusing on how schools should be addressing the traumatic experiences of girls, and girls of color in particular, Sara Burd, District Leader of Social Emotional Learning in Reading, MA shared the innovative approaches used across the Commonwealth to endeavor to create Safe and Supportive Learning Environments for all students.
In a trauma-sensitive school, the school explicitly connects students to the school community and provides multiple opportunities to for students to practice newly developing skills.
Susan Cole, Director of MAC’s Trauma & Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI) presented at a White House Conference entitled: “Trauma-Informed Approaches in School: Supporting Girls of Color and Rethinking Discipline.”
Watch the event live by clilcking the White House Briefing Room Link.
Follow live social media updates at the hashtag: #rethinkdiscipline
TLPI director, Susan Cole, has been invited to the White House to lead two sessions related to policy reform at the Trauma-Informed Approaches in School: Supporting Girls of Color and Rethinking Discipline meeting.