InspirEd2024 - Courtney Davies - Becoming a Trauma-Informed Educator

Becoming a Trauma-Informed Educator 

Q: What is Trauma?

• Unable to complete a satisfactory fight/flight/freeze response.
• Changes how we perceive danger
• Overwhelms the capacity to emotionally digest

Consider...Is this student reacting only to this present moment or are they reacting to a series of unprocessed lived experiences?

Trauma or trauma

• Big T: Big event, something that threatens physical safety (accident, attack, natural disaster)
• Little T: More ongoing events that are deeply distressing, smaller individual events but chronic (neglect of emotions, shaming); build-up in childhood can lead to Complex Trauma

Q: What is trauma-informed education important?

• As teachers, we are often the first point of contact in society. 
• Responsibility and opportunity to impact this -- more than trauma therapists -- because we have access to the general population
• Trauma is possibly the largest public health issue facing our children today. (CDC)
  
• Students can't learn if they don't feel safe, known, and cared for in their schools. 

Realize

Realize the widespread impact of trauma

• Difficult to do because we only have our own experience
• All behaviour meets a need (communication about a need)
• Satir's Iceberg
• There is only a small portion of what we see above the surface. 
  
  
• What can we realistically expect of these students? 
• How does Trauma impact brain development?
• The Triune Brain
  
  
  
• Our brain often communicates from bottom level, up when we want it to do the opposite. 

Impact on the Brain and Behaviour

• Physical
• Emotional
• Learning
• Behaviour

Impact on Perception

• Cognitive Triad of Traumatic Stress
• Self
• World
• Future

Impact on the Nervous System

• Healthy nervous system flexes between sympathetic and parasympathetic, staying fairly consistent
• Trauma causes people to go outside the normal range, getting stuck "on" or "off", unable to process things that are happening
• Trauma flexes your window of tolerance. It's not a bad thing to be outside that window, it's just important how big your window is and how far out of it you get. 

Recognize

Recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma

• ACEs = adverse childhood experiences
  
   
• https://healingtrauma.au/adverse-childhood-experience-ace-test/
• Attachment Styles:
  

  

  
  

Signs and Symptoms of Trauma

• The more that you see, the more likely it is that trauma is a part of it. Not every sign alone equals trauma.
• Something can be traumatic for one person and not for another person. It depends on the individual. 
• Being neurodivergent in social is an inherently traumatic experience. 

Respond

Respond with trauma-sensitive practices

• The Four C's:
• Calm: for you and the student
• Co-regulate
• Stay calm in times ofs tress
• Be present
• Use supportive words
• Limit your language
• Model coping strategies
• Invite the child to join coping strategies
  
  
  
  
• Contain: space for big emotions
• Empathy and attunement
  
  
• De-escalation
• Don't rush the process
• Give space
• Validate feelings and experiences
• Don't take it personally
• Remember the end goal
• Remain calm
• Change the setting
• Respect personal space
• Listen
• Empathize
• Care: self-care and compassion
• Connection
• Unconditional positive regard triangle 
  
  
  
  
  
• Rupture and Repair
  
  
  
  
  
• Cope: building resilience
• Soothing and strategies
• Coping Wheel
• Reconnecting with your body and the present moment (grounding techniques)
• Breathe deeply
• Take a walk
• 3-3-3 things you see, hear, move parts of your body
• Drink cold water
• Count backwards from 100 to 1
• Body Scan: Focus your attention on the sensation in your feet then move attention up the body
• Retraumatization
• Challenging or discounting experiences 
• Using isolation or humiliation
• Allowing abuse between students
• Labeling behaviour/feelings as pathological
• Minimizing, discrediting, or ignoring
• Inconsistency and chaos in environment
• Rules without exceptions or chance to question