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Trauma-Sensitive Approach
September 30 , 2020
"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."
Prepare
Effective Preparation
Here's a place for the first part of your presentation. And to the right, there are subsections for more specific detail.
Effective preparation is essential for achieving true and lasting systems change related to trauma sensitivity. Preparing to successfully adopt a trauma-sensitive approach school- or districtwide involves educating fellow leaders, staff, families, and community partners to ensure a common understanding and rationale for change; assessing readiness for change; and establishing the structures for supporting, monitoring, and sustaining new practices.
Develop an action plan.
Use the action planning for Phase 1
to plan for how you will do the following:
Communicate your commitment to trauma-sensitivity
Allocate resources
Educate staff
Create a trauma-sensitive work group
Assess your school’s readiness for change
Communicate your commitment to adopting a trauma-sensitive approach.
School leaders communicate to staff a commitment to adopting a schoolwide trauma-sensitive approach. You can accomplish this through a number of actions:
Introduce the topic as part of staff or team meetings and provide opportunities to discuss and illustrate what this might look like with staff.
Use the roadmap outlined in this action guide to provide staff with a vision for the change process at the school.
Attend and follow up on all training events;
Ensure that staff members are able to engage fully in the change process (e.g., provide adequate time and resources); and
Model trauma sensitivity with students, families, and school staff.
Communicate
Envision
Allocate sufficient resources to support the change process.
Here's a place for the second part of your presentation. And to the right, there are subsections for more specific detail.
We can begin by considering how trauma sensitivity aligns with other initiatives already in place at your school. It may be possible to consolidate resources by incorporating trauma-related trainings and activities into other processes that are already well resourced. Essential resources include the following:
Time and coverage for ongoing professional development activities related to trauma sensitivity
Materials for professional development events (e.g., photocopies of activities, discussion guides, accompanying slides; paper and markers for discussion)
Create an online workspace to facilitate sharing documents like the action plan and to show progress towards goals.
Provide regular updates in staff meetings, leadership meetings, and all-staff e-mails or newsletters to encourage ongoing dialogue and exchange of ideas.
Administer regular (quarterly or semiannual) staff surveys or focus groups to help assess the extent to which changes reach all staff and influence daily practice and whether aspects of the change process could be improved.
Title
Sustain
Here's a place for the third part of your presentation. And to the right, there are subsections for more specific detail.
Educate all staff about trauma and its effects as well as trauma-sensitive schools.
We can conduct in-person staff trainings using the Building Trauma-Sensitive Schools online module. The module familiarizes the staff with the concept of trauma sensitivity and with trauma-sensitive practices that can be employed schoolwide. The training is divided in to multiple sections, each with corresponding checklists, worksheets, practice guides, and discussion questions for supporting staff in adopting a trauma-sensitive approach.
Align
Here's a place for the fourth part of your presentation. And to the right, there are subsections for more specific detail.
Create a trauma-sensitive work group.
The team of school leaders initiating the change process should grow and/or evolve after training to include staff members in different roles across the school (e.g., teachers, student services staff such as school counselors and school social workers, and other non-instructional staff) who are willing to support these efforts.
If your school already has work groups dedicated to similar efforts, such as a school improvement or climate team, you can consider ways to align them in Phase 3 (p. 50). The work group is most effective when it represents the larger school community, which also means including students, families, and community partners.
The work group plans for how to ensure all voices are represented in the expanded group. Over time, you may consider rotating staff members on the work group to avoid burnout and ensure new perspectives.
Activities
Take Away
Assess your school’s current practices related to trauma sensitivity.
Develop an action plan for adopting key elements of traumasensitivity in each domain of focus
Develop a feedback loop to keep all staff informed.