Here are five ways for teachers to be trauma-informed...
1. Do not try to identify the kids in your classroom who have high ACEs scores. Rather, spend your time creating a safe and welcoming classroom environment where students' brains and bodies can relax. Ask students how they are doing; offer compassion when they have a difficult day; and get to know them as the wonderful small humans they are! 2. Learn more about the fight/flight/freeze response, and learn how to identify when a student might be experiencing that kind of response in your classroom, in the halls, and in the dean's office--so that you can be a calming, compassionate, and grounding presence for the kid. Then, teach your students about the fight, flight, freeze response. 3. Reflect on how teeny, tiny adjustments to your tone of voice, body language, and the physical set-up of your space create an opportunity for your students to begin rewiring their brains for resilience. 4. Offer & model mindful practices (or the opportunities for mindful moments, breath breaks, mindful walks, etc...) that allow the brain and body to reintegrate after going into the "fight/flight/freeze" response; and encourage students to move their bodies after conflicts so they can move that stress response through their nervous system. 5. Perhaps most importantly, and often least discussed in this realm, model healthy emotional and physical boundaries for your students. Don't try to save them. In fact, students who have been exposed to trauma often struggle with boundaries. Trauma-exposed people greatly benefit from guidance and modeling around what healthy emotional and physical boundaries look and feel like. Attempts to "rescue" or "save" trauma-exposed students may inadvertently create more trauma (for you and the student). I see this as the most difficult part of trauma-informed care for most educators. Now that we see trauma, we want to dive in, offer help, and fix it. However, all we can control is what happens when our students are in our buildings. It's critical that we understand that is enough! We can only do so much. So yes, that means...please, don't give your students your cell number and tell them to call you any time they need something! Instead, EMPOWER them and explore the strengths they have in their lives outside of school. Help them learn how to identify when they're experiencing distress, explore with them who in their life and family they can go to when they're feeling this way outside of school; and practice with them how to ask for help from an adult when they're not at school. By leveraging the strengths in their environments, you are helping them to develop their resilience. At the end of the day, a truly trauma-informed educator wants to their trauma-exposed students to look back at their education and realize that, while they had wonderful supports from their teachers, that it was through their own strength and resilience that they made it through the adversity they experienced in life.
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AuthorTammy Dee, MSW. Archives
August 2019
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