Lesley Institute for Trauma Sensitivity: Resources

Resources

• Practices for Building Trauma Sensitivity

  Using the Flexible Framework from Helping Traumatized Children Learn as their guide, educators enrolled in Lesley University’s trauma courses have recommended the following practices:

  Identify and share interests.

  Discovering children’s interests can be key to building a relationship with them, especially if they feel less confident or successful or engaged in school. To assist in this process, ask everyone in the school (students, teachers, administrators, and staff) to fill in a visual representation (e.g., 2 intersecting circles) with their interests. Then post them for all to see.

  Use a morning meeting to create a predictable and consistent environment for learning.

  Predictability and consistency can help all children to learn, but are especially important for those who have experienced trauma. Morning meeting times provide students with a clear and consistent start to their day, and when the meeting time is used to preview the day’s events and activities, surprises are minimized and transitions are easier.

  Create a classroom “calming area."

  High levels of arousal can make it difficult for anyone to learn. But traumatized children are not always able to recognize or say when they are having this experience. By making a space in your classroom for every child to go to when they feel hyperaroused, anxious, or vulnerable, you are providing children with the skills to identify these feelings and regulate them.

  Use a “hot spot” map to ensure safety.

  Physical and psychological safety is a cornerstone of a trauma-sensitive school. To promote safety, create a “hot spot” map to identify areas in and around the school for troublesome behavior. Make those areas known to administrators, teachers, and staff. Develop plans for making these areas safe. Monitor success in implementing your plans.

  Plan and set priorities for improvement.

  Developing trauma sensitivity requires assessing a school’s strengths and identifying areas where teachers and staff see needs. Teams enrolled in Lesley University’s courses on trauma have found it helpful to use a tool developed by Lesley’s Center for Special Education and the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative of Massachusetts Advocates for Children and the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School.

• Tools for Assessing Your Own School

  Trauma-Sensitive Schools Checklist (PDF)

  Online Survey
  Do discipline policies balance accountability with an understanding of trauma? Are activities structured in predictable and emotionally safe ways? Does your school contain predictable and safe environments (including classrooms, hallways, playground, and school bus) that are attentive to transitions and sensory needs?

  Take this survey, and then print it out to refer to as you think about more ways to make your school trauma sensitive.

• Publications by Massachusetts Advocates for Children

  Two volumes by the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative: 

  Helping Traumatized Children Learn, Volumes I and II

  April 2020 article:

  Trauma-Sensitive Remote Learning: Keeping Connections Strong

• One School's Journey Toward Trauma Sensitivity

  At the spring 2020 LIFTS institute, principal Natalie Pohl gave a keynote outlining the journey the George School in Brockton, MA, took to build and sustain a more trauma-sensitive environment for their community. Read Creating a Safe and Supportive School.

• Summary of LIFTS Evaluation Report

  LIFTS produced an interim evaluation report in December of 2019, conducted by Russell Faux, EdD, of Davis Square Research Associates LLC.

  The unpublished report is based on interviews with 6 Massachusetts educators—district-level specialists or principals—who discussed their work in promoting trauma-sensitive practices. The researcher compiled data on these educators’ views of how institutional and cultural change could result in a widespread adoption of trauma awareness and sensitivity. 

  Key findings of the study: 

  • The introduction of trauma-sensitive practices must fit well with existing initiatives in a school.  
  • Practices require groups of teachers with similar commitments who are reasonably well-connected to one another in the school. 
  • Groups of teachers need to be built carefully, ensuring that key constituencies are represented. 
  • The ongoing growth of schools toward becoming safe and supportive depends on  teachers seeing themselves and their peers as trauma educators. This process is central to the cultural change necessary for a school to embody trauma-sensitive awareness and practices.

  Interviewees reported:

  • A broadened understanding of trauma and the many ways it can manifest
  • Insights into the effects of trauma
  • The value of support from LIFTS in their schools' efforts to fulfill broad policy goals
  • Important changes in how they engaged with students, due to their training
  • Cultural growth in trauma awareness
  • A sense of personal and professional renewal