ATN Interview

Attachment and Trauma Network Interview with Joe Ristuccia

Attachment and Trauma Network, Inc.Joe Ristuccia, Training Director for TLPI and Adjunct Professor at Lesley University was interviewed by the Attachment and Trauma Network about the impact of trauma on learning and the need for whole school trauma sensitive environments that are good for all students.

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Excerpt from ATN Interview Transcript

Ken:     Hello everyone. I’m Dr. Ken Huey of CALO, a residential treatment center for adopted children from the ages of 9 to 18. Our kids struggle with emotional and behavioural issues and they have a trauma background.

Today we are here to talk with Joe Ristuccia, another interview from the Educating Traumatized Children Summit: An online gathering of expert voices on how to provide trauma‐sensitive school experience to children. This summit has been created by the Attachment and Trauma Network.

As I said, we are here with Joe Ristuccia and we are going to talk about the impact of trauma and the importance of trauma sensitive schools on a child’s ability to learn. Joe Ristuccia is a certified school psychologist who, with over 25 years’ experience working in the public schools, over the last 20 years he has worked with students at risk for failure due to social, behavioural and emotional difficulties. Mr. Ristuccia has served as consultant on the impact of trauma on student learning to the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, TLPI, and is a co‐author of Helping Traumatized Children Learn. Additionally, he has consulted to the Department of School Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, presented program model research findings at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), presented for the Departments of Education in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Washington as well as the University of Wisconsin on topics related to the impact of trauma on learning and on the role of trauma and student behaviours that can lead to punitive discipline and school failure.

Mr. Ristuccia is an Adjunct Professor at Lesley University teaching courses in developing trauma sensitive school‐wide, classroom and individual interventions to support all students to be successful in the general education curriculum. Mr. Ristuccia holds an Ed.M. from Harvard University and a B.A. from Yale.  Joe, welcome.

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