Hayward Recovery and Resilience Project

provided by East Bay Agency for Children and Trauma Transformed

As of September 30, 2025, our Recovery and Resilience grant has concluded. This website will remain open through the 2025 - 2026 school year so that all Hayward Unified School District staff can continue to access the training curriculum and resources that we utilized throughout the project. Please read below for a summary of the incredible accomplishments of our work together, an overview of the website content, and a history of the grant. Thank you HUSD!

Project Highlights 🎉

We achieved so much together in the two years of this project! Throughout the two years of the grant:

📚 Over 900+ HUSD staff participated in training sessions (with many staff attending three or more sessions!) - including teachers, counselors, safety officers, administrators, and more

🧠 We focused on strengthening trauma-informed practices, regulation & co-regulation tools, deepening grief responsiveness, and supporting healing-centered classrooms

🤝 SEL Counselors participated in a Train the Trainer model to lead grief support groups

🌐 We created and utilized this custom website with resources and role-specific content for ongoing access

Staff shared beautiful learnings and reflections throughout the project, including:

“This session helped me shift my perspective on the root of student behaviors.”
“I want every staff member in my building to take this training.”
“Thank you for making space for us to have meaningful conversations on hard topics.”
“The most impactful information was to learn about how grief affects the mind and body.”
"The station activities were a very helpful way to process and apply practices that support our students' various needs."
"I appreciated the strategies for trauma transformation-- especially purposeful praise, cognitive reappraisal, and avoiding power struggles."
“These spaces for grief and resilience that honors both the student experience and our work matter.”
“I really appreciated having open dialogue with my colleagues, allowing me to learn from their perspectives and experience. The training itself was powerful, and challenged us to see the differences in student responses - reminding us that it's not always the loud and big emotions that we need to pay attention to, but the quieter, more passive responses as well.”

Website Overview

We utilized this website throughout our project as a streamlined way to ensure all staff could access the entire curriculum. Teams can continue to find their session materials on their website pages, as well as videos on requested topics. Please continue to utilize and share all the resources! While the grant has concluded, please contact Trauma Transformed at traumatransformed@ebac.org with any questions or needs. Thank you!

Grant History

In September 2023, Trauma Transformed, in partnership with Hayward Unified School District (HUSD), launched the Recovery and Resilience Building Project, made possible through Representative Swalwell and a SAMHSA grant. This grant was originally drafted by HUSD and EBAC staff in response to the immense need presented by the COVID pandemic - the collective grief, trauma, and stress that the community was facing, and student learning loss as well. Alameda County data shows families served by Hayward Unified School District (HUSD) are among the most negatively impacted by COVID, with the unincorporated Cherryland, Ashland and South Hayward areas experiencing the greatest number of deaths and increased impacts of economic and health stressors. The ongoing stress and trauma impacting communities has meant there is a continued need for this curriculum. And thus, this initiative was born out of a shared recognition of the deep challenges facing students, families, and educators.

The project's goals were to build awareness and capacity so that all members of HUSD school communities could be more trauma and grief-aware, and implement more supportive practices within classrooms, school settings, and provide resources and referrals as needed. We specifically focused on:

Increasing school ability to identify and respond to student grief and trauma by training district service staff teams
Building knowledge and capacity of Hayward Unified School District (HUSD) educators and support staff personnel to recognize and regulate their own trauma and grief by developing a team of school district staff to provide training, coaching, and support
Building capacity of support services personnel to increase families' understanding of trauma and grief so children’s needs are understood and can be addressed with services
Expanding access to direct service grief or related mental health services

We were incredibly grateful to Representative Swalwell and SAMHSA, as well as the amazing partnership and trust from all HUSD staff throughout the project. Thank you HUSD!!!

Information on Curriculum (Session Materials Available on Team Pages)

Trauma-Informed Systems 101

4-hour training, can also be trained in two 2-hour sessions

Training Description:

There is a growing demand for education and support to better understand, respond to, and heal the impact of trauma on our communities and workforce. Trauma Informed Systems 101 is a foundational training to understand how trauma and stress impacts all our bodies and brains, communities, organizations and systems. The main topics that will be covered include: neurobiology of trauma and the effect on our bodies, strategies for self-regulation and co-regulation, historical trauma and cultural humility, and trauma informed communication strategies. By strengthening a shared understanding and language to address stress and trauma, we are better resourced to support healing individually, interpersonally, and collectively.

Objectives:

Participants will be able to identify the six principles of trauma-informed systems
Participants will strengthen shared language and collective understanding around stress, trauma, and resilience
Participants will discuss some of the effects of stress, trauma, structural racism, and biases
Participants will explore trauma-and-resilience informed tools to support healing

Regulation and Co-Regulation

2-hour training

Training Description:

This training will explore strategies for regulation and co-regulation in our everyday lives. As helping professionals we see how dysregulation can impact our ability to learn, have healthy relationships and be our best selves. This training will explain the neuroscience behind the stress/trauma response, including explanations of hyperarousal, hypo-arousal and the window of tolerance. Participants will also discuss the importance of developing emotional vocabulary and sensory awareness with youth in order to identify the regulation tools that will be effective for them. We will also explore how co-regulation can foster resilience and healing for all. Strategies will be shared that can be used with youth and families to explain the effects of trauma and stress and the benefits of regulation/co-regulation strategies.

Objectives:

Participants will practice how to support youth and caregiver’s understanding of stress and trauma, and how stress and trauma affect regulation
Participants will examine three strategies to increase sensory and emotional identification
Participants will explore three strategies to support regulation and co-regulation

Trauma-Informed & Resilient Classrooms

2-hour training

Training Description:

The Trauma Informed and Resilient Classrooms workshop is designed for teachers, administration, staff, and providers that work within the school systems. In this training, we will practice strategies for countering stress and trauma, as well as strengthening resilience on individual and collective levels. The concepts of hyper and hypo-arousal introduced in the Regulation and Co-Regulation training will be applied to a classroom setting. The trainers will present demonstrate the hand model of the brain, discuss empathy, and review strategies for supporting diverse learning styles.

Objectives:

Participants will be able to identify two effects of trauma on our brains and bodies
Participants will be able to identify two effects of sociocultural trauma on our lives and in the lives of those we serve
Participants will be able to identify two underlying universal needs
Participants will be able to identify two resilient strategies to practice in the classroom

Grief Sensitive Schools 101

3-hour training; can be trained in two 90-minute sessions

Training Description:

This training is meant to offer teachers working with grieving children helpful suggestions on how to best support their students. The training will include an overview of how grief is experienced in children and adolescents at different developmental stages, how children show their grief, the impact of grief on learning and grief triggers. Information will be provided on the various emotional reactions that can be happening internally after loss as well as video of children discussing the impact of their grief and video book on death for diverse learning styles. There will be discussion of several types of losses including primary, secondary and cumulative and how this may affect the grieving process.

Objectives:

Name how children understand death differently based on their age and developmental stage
Name 3-5 possible grief reactions in early childhood and school aged children
Name the four aspects of death that are important for all children to understand
Explain the emotional and behavioral effects of primary, secondary and cumulative grief

Grief Sensitive Schools 102

3-hour training; can be trained in two 90-minute sessions

Training Description:

This training will focus on specific strategies that can be used with grieving students while noting the different types of losses which impact our youth. Information will be provided regarding how to initiate a conversation, what to say and how to check for a child’s understanding of death. The trainer will facilitate dialogue regarding the importance of cultural sensitivity and how to be culturally responsive in your grief support with a family. School specific strategies will be explored such as offering academic support proactively, preparing students to manage grief triggers and supporting transitions between grades and schools. Participants will engage in vignettes and a grief sensitive activity to deepen awareness and video book on death for diverse learning styles.

Objectives:

Participants will learn specific language to support grieving children
Participants will gain 2-3 concrete strategies of how to support a grieving child
Participants will learn 1-2 ways different cultures may influence a child’s grief
Participants will learn 2 ways to Implement trauma-informed care in discussions of grief with children
Participants will learn 3 ways to engage as school staff in addressing grief
Practice self-compassion throughout this process

Additional Training Sessions and 1:1 Support

Staff Wellness & Grief Support, Healing Healers: 2-hour session

The work we do is serious, important, and sometimes draining. For this reason, we must find ways to recover from the ongoing challenges and sustain ourselves in the work. We believe it is important to create opportunities to pause and take account of the impact of the work on us and learn strategies for how to deal with the stress. Come participate in our workshop and learn techniques to deal with stress and recovery.

Topic Specific Grief and Loss Training Sessions: each session is 2-hours

Navigating the Grief of Suicide
Community Rituals After a Loss
Moving With Students in Their Grief

Grief and Loss Support Group Facilitation Training

This is a train-the-trainer model for HUSD staff on how to provide support groups for grieving students and families. This takes place over two 2-hour sessions, and is only available to individuals and teams that complete all the prior training sessions.

1:1 Coaching and Implementation Support: Contact us for 1:1 individualized coaching to support the implementation of trauma-informed, healing centered school practices.

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