Helping Traumatized Children Learn Volume 2:
Creating and Advocating for Trauma-Sensitive Schools
Publication Date: December 2013
The goal of Creating and Advocating for Trauma-Sensitive Schools is to move beyond awareness of trauma’s impacts on learning to help schools become trauma-sensitive learning environments that can improve educational outcomes for all students.
This book offers a Guide to a process for creating trauma-sensitive schools and a policy agenda to provide the support schools need to achieve this goal. Based on the experience of pioneering schools in Massachusetts, the Guide is intended to be a living document that will grow and change as more schools become trauma sensitive and add their ideas.
The policy agenda, honed through fifteen years of advocating for trauma-sensitive schools at all levels of policy in Massachusetts, calls for changes in laws, policies, and funding streams to support schools in this work. We believe that school-wide trauma sensitivity can become a regular part of how schools are run if educators engage in the process of creating trauma-sensitive schools and join with students, parents, advocates, and many others to raise their voices to legislators and other policymakers. This Guide is meant to be a companion to this website and our online learning community for creating and advocating for trauma-sensitive schools.
This site offers resources to support schools in the use of the Guide and an opportunity to share ideas and best practices about whole-school trauma sensitivity. It also provides an opportunity to learn about and join in the campaign to advocate for the support.
Since the 2005 publication of Volume 1 of Helping Traumatized Children Learn, many schools have shown the dramatic educational improvements trauma sensitivity can bring about for who have been exposed to traumatic events. These schools have made trauma sensitivity an essential aspect of high-quality instruction and a central part of their school-wide educational mission. In turn, students at trauma-sensitive schools have reaped the benefits of greater academic achievement, more time spent on learning, reduced disciplinary referrals, improved relationships with peers and adults, and more supportive teaching in the classroom.
For information about ordering copies of Helping Traumatized Children Learn Volume 2: Creating and Advocating for Trauma-Sensitive Schools. An electronic PDF of the book is also available to view without charge.