Understanding trauma and supporting staff and students to thrive

(Repost of an August 2024 post on Regional Education Laboratory Program.)

Trauma can occur when a person experiences an adverse event that causes them physical, emotional, or psychological distress or harm. This trauma can impact every system in the person’s body and affect how they interact with the world. A student living with constant financial instability may not be able to focus during class because of hunger or worry about where they will sleep that night. For a student who has experienced community violence, a raised hand meant to be a pat on the back could produce flinching and defensiveness. Students who experience trauma may often seem to be on their guard or hyperaware of their environment, unable to stay focused or on task. They may have sudden behavioral outbursts because their bodies do not have the capacity to regulate incoming sensory information. Such outbursts can disrupt classroom activities.

So what can school staff do? Educators do not need to become mental health professionals or reduce their focus on instruction to support students experiencing trauma. To support students who have been impacted by potentially traumatic events, all school staff can learn new knowledge and strategies in four areas: understanding trauma and its impact on schools, creating a trauma-sensitive school environment and classroom, identifying students who need more intensive trauma-sensitive supports, and educator well-being.

This blog post delves into these four topics and provides ready-to-use training and coaching resources to equip all school staff with the knowledge and evidence-based strategies to support students and staff who have experienced trauma.

Set the foundation: Understanding trauma and its impact on schools

Creating a common understanding of what trauma is and its impact on schools is a critical first step in using whole-school trauma-sensitive approaches to support all students and educators.¹ This shared understanding helps ensure everyone at the school recognizes that addressing trauma is a collective responsibility, not just the role of a school counselor.

Setting this foundation can also shift staff mindsets. This shift includes understanding that challenging student behavior and poor academic outcomes that may result from traumatic experiences are a form of communication. Students are not acting out to challenge the teacher or disrupt others, but are expressing an unmet need. Educators with a trauma-sensitive mindset would shift from asking “What’s wrong with students?” to asking, “What happened to them and how can we support them?”

To learn more about how to set this foundation for understanding trauma and its impact on schools, check out these REL Appalachia training and coaching materials, which include:

• A training video, and
• Handout describing three types of trauma.

Implement strategies for all: Creating a trauma-sensitive school environment and classroom

School staff may not always know if a student has been exposed to trauma. Therefore, one of the best approaches is to have school staff proactively provide trauma-sensitive supports throughout the school for all students.² Implementing universal strategies reduces the activation of students’ trauma response and reduces the possibility of re-traumatization.

The graphic below shows strategies for all school staff to use. When delivered with care and attention to students’ and families’ historical, racial, and cultural experiences, these three strategies can support all students, not only those impacted by trauma.

To learn more about how to create a trauma-sensitive school environment and classroom, check out these REL Appalachia training and coaching materials, which include:

• A training video, and
• Handout with strategies for developing trauma-sensitive classrooms to support educators and students

Take advantage of screeners: Identifying students who need more intensive trauma-sensitive supports

Students who have experienced potentially traumatic events may need specialized supports in addition to the strategies provided to all students in a trauma-sensitive classroom.³ Trauma screeners are critical tools for schools to identify students in need of support. However, families and students may be reluctant to complete trauma screeners, out of concern for how the results might label the students and what schools will do with this information. By clearly defining what trauma screeners are – and are not – and how this information will be used to support students and families, school staff can increase buy-in and engagement. Without a screening process in place, students may not otherwise reveal information about their trauma and could continue to experience symptoms that are treatable.

To learn more about how to screen for students who may need more intensive trauma-sensitive supports, check out these REL Appalachia training and coaching materials, which include:

• A training video, and
• Coaching materials (as a followup to the training video) with links to additional resources.

Care for yourself: Educator well-being

Educator well-being is associated with higher rates of educator commitment, lower rates of burnout and attrition, higher rates of educator efficacy, better understanding of classroom dynamics, and more.⁴ Educators may face increased stress and even trauma when supporting students, so they must also take care of themselves.

Educator well-being is a shared responsibility that depends on different levels of support and the collective engagement of multiple individuals in the school community. Below are strategies that school staff can apply at the individual and organizational levels:⁵

Individual actions	Social and organizational actions
Practice self-reflection and check in regularly with yourself and others.	Ensure workload, pay/privileges, and resources are reasonable and equitably distributed among staff.
Try mindfulness and/or meditation.	Provide ample and varied high-priority professional development opportunities, including self-care for adults.
Protect personal time (away from work) and establish healthy boundaries in the workplace; simplify and streamline responsibilities.	Build relationships and connections with teachers.

To learn more about how to support educator well-being, check out these REL Appalachia training and coaching materials, which include:

• A training video, and
• Handout with resources to support educator well-being.

School staff seeking to create trauma-sensitive environments to better support students and educators experiencing trauma can learn more about these strategies using the resources below.

Resources to learn more

Explore and consider replicating: Check out materials from the four-part training and coaching series where REL Appalachia staff supported educators in understanding and implementing evidence-based practices to support students and educators experiencing trauma. The links to several of these resources are embedded in this blog.

Find out more: Explore this compilation of additional resources aligned with each session of the four-part series.

Gain new strategies: Build your skillset by reviewing the infographic Developing Trauma-Sensitive Classrooms: A Training and Coaching Series for Educators to find more strategies to support students and educators.

Learn about our partnership: Visit our Building Safe, Caring, and Trauma-Sensitive Schools partnership page to learn more about how REL Appalachia is supporting district and school staff in western Kentucky to implement evidence-based, trauma-sensitive practices.

Stay connected: Subscribe to the REL Appalachia quarterly newsletter to receive updates on new products and projects as we support students in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Footnotes

Topics: Educator professional development and support Mental health Trauma

Tags: Educator well-being