Trauma-Informed Care
On the continuum of Restorative Practices, being trauma-informed falls within both preventative and responsive interventions.
Being trauma-informed is a way to increase affective and cognitive engagement, and subsequently behavioral engagement as well.
The Continuum of Restorative Practices encompasses both preventative and responsive practices, and these can all be trauma-informed.
Before we care for those with trauma, we have to understand it, without judgement or blame...
As we keep trauma in mind as educators, we are being both proactive in our planning and community building and reactive to students' personal experiences. These resources will help us understand our students' trauma, how those traumas impact their learning abilities and preferences, AND also to examine how their trauma affects US, as their educators.
This video to the left outlines some of the major differences in the thinking and brains of our students when they are in LEARNING mode, when they are in SURVIVAL mode (trauma mode), and reasons why it's hard for them to be in both modes.
Students who have experienced trauma feel the need to protect themselves more than students who haven't. This video explains the three ways they tend to do so, and what that looks like in daily life at school. This also explains how we feel at school sometimes.
Trauma CHANGES our students' brains. This video explains how trauma impacts the LIMBIC SYSTEM, particularly, the amygdala, our security center. Amygdala hijack is something many of our students have, and we might not even know it.
ACES refers to the research study on Adverse Childhood Experiences. There are three different types of ACES, in 8-10 categories, with very serious health impacts. This video explains what the specific ACES are and how they impact our students as learners.
This is a TED Talk that outlines the ACES study, as well as how it impacts the mental and physical health of our students. It also explains how ACES transcend all socioeconomic classes and structures as well as ethnic and racial subgroups.
Below are articles that correspond to the videos and topics above:
The above video shows some ways that trauma impacts the behavior of our students.
What does trauma look like in the classroom?
Identifying the symptoms of trauma in the children can help educators understand these confusing behaviors. And it can help avoid misdiagnosis, as these symptoms can mimic other problems, including ADHD and other behavior disorders.
In brief, the obstacles to learning experienced by these children include:
- Trouble forming relationships with teachers
- Poor self-regulation
- Negative thinking
- Hyper-vigilance
- Executive function challenges
How does our students' trauma impact US?
Educators often suffer from Vicarious Trauma, the ways our students' trauma leads US to be traumatized. It also could lead to Compassion Fatigue, which happens when we've had so many experiences in which we could not change what we wanted to, for our students and their lives.
"While Compassion Fatigue (CF) refers to the profound emotional and physical erosion that takes place when educators are unable to refuel and regenerate, the term Vicarious trauma (VT) was coined by Pearlman & Saakvitne (1995) to describe the profound shift in world view that occurs in helping professionals when they work with clients who have experienced trauma. Helpers notice that their fundamental beliefs about the world are altered and possibly damaged by being repeatedly exposed to traumatic material."