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How can Building Trauma-Sensitive Schools be used to support social-emotional health in classrooms
impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic?
Trauma impacted students, families, and educators before the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue influencing attendance, behavior, and academic achievement long after communities have been vaccinated and school buildings reopen. The pandemic is causing children and adults alike to experience trauma responses as a result of illness, loss, isolation, and economic hardship, among other adverse experiences. For some students, the pandemic has exacerbated the trauma that they were already experiencing. Others are experiencing new stress. As a result, it is critical that all educators understand what trauma is, how it affects both youth and adults, especially from a developmental perspective, and how to be responsive to people who are hurting. Educators are now in the difficult position where they must address the social-emotional needs of students who have had varying experiences during the pandemic, while also learning how to thoughtfully build long-term systems of support for students and staff that increase social emotional well-being and maximize learning. It is necessary to both acknowledge the suffering that has been and is happening right now, while working together to ensure that schooling after the pandemic meets everyone’s needs better than it did before COVID-19.
Building Trauma-Sensitive Schools helps school teams collaborate to make changes in PreK-12+ learning environments that will address the long-term effects of trauma, whether that trauma is related to the pandemic or other stressors. First, this accessible resource takes educators on a deep dive into how trauma impacts students’ brains, development, and overall social-emotional health. Next, educators will learn how to shift their mindset to welcome students back to the classroom, and how to foster safety, warm relationships, and emotional regulation to help students get ready to learn. The book presents universal trauma-sensitive strategies that will benefit every student in the classroom, as well as more intensive approaches and interventions to meet the needs of students who benefit from more support. Educators will also be prompted to build their own self-care plan to promote their own well-being and reduce the effects of job-related stress. Filled with practical materials including worksheets, scripts, activities, case studies, and more, this resource helps teams create an action plan to prevent traumatic experiences at school, as well as to create systems of support so that every student—even the most vulnerable—can access everything they need for school success.