Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Work
Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Work
By Dr. Michael M. Piccirillo, CASDA Executive Director
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Using Alex Shevrin Venet’s book, “Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education,” as the research base, CASDA has embarked on a journey to encourage and support educators in using an equity lens to focus on trauma. As Venet (2021) asserts, “Equity and social justice are key concerns of trauma-informed educators as we make changes in our individual practice, in classrooms, in schools, and in districtwide and statewide systems” (p.10).
A shift from viewing trauma as an identified individual deficit to interrogating the systems and structures that cause and perpetuate trauma individually and collectively, especially for traditionally marginalized students and adults is critical. To support educators to understand and adopt this shift, CASDA recently kick-off a five-part free virtual series using Venet’s book as a guide. During the first session held on October 13, 2021, more than 20 educators gathered to engage in a robust discussion of Venet’s (2021) Principles Of Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education. Beginning with the principle, antiracist, anti oppression, Venet (2021) challenges educators to shift to an asset-based, systems oriented, human-centered, proactive and social justice focused understanding of trauma-sensitive education (pgs.13-14). The series will continue on December 15, 2021 when participants will discuss the Four Proactive Priorities: predictability, flexibility, connection, and empowerment.
CASDA also had the pleasure of working with educators at the Blessed Sacrament School in August, facilitating a half-day workshop on Thoughtful Conversations About Trauma-Informed Schools. The workshop was structured around three essential questions: How does your school and community currently respond to student and adult trauma? What changes would you like to see in how the school and community responds to student and adult trauma? What steps would you like to see the school and community take to become a healing environment? Unique to this workshop, participants engaged in a jigsaw activity of a case study, “Seeing Their Eyes in the Rearview Mirror: Identifying and Responding to Students’ Challenging Experiences,” by Adam Alvarez (2017). The research questions included: How does an educator make sense of his students’ challenging experiences inside and outside of school? How does this educator identify and respond to their needs as a result of what he classifies as traumatic experiences? It was a great morning at Blessed Sacrament, which ended with a Circle Discussion around the question, “What steps would you like to see the school and community take to become a healing environment?”
Moving forward, join CASDA for any of the remaining sessions in the previously mentioned free virtual series or for rural educators, “Trauma-Informed Education in Rural Schools,'' a special free series with a rural lens beginning November 9, 2021. With all of these opportunities for educators to engage with each other on the topic of equity-centered trauma-informed education, the overarching message to educators is, “... schools can be a healing environment” (Venet, 2021, p.179).
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