Preface and Welcome

You are likely reviewing this eBook as you are seeking quick answers and resources to support a student or child that you are working with. Perhaps you have recently experienced more intense behaviors from a child or adolescent, you feel you’re not making much progress, or your usual approaches have been exhausted. The fact that you are searching for answers and resources shows your care and concern for students and children. Thank you for looking for ways to improve yourself, and to help improve the circumstances for students and children with whom you work and care for.

Dr. Lane: Why This eBook

Academic success is the goal of any educator. However, one of the current challenges educators face is helping students feel safe and ready to learn so they can be successful in the classroom. Teachers are trained and very well prepared in content, standards, and classroom management. However, teachers often feel ill-prepared or ill-equipped to handle trauma (Bonella et al., 2020). Teacher education programs have traditionally focused on developmentally appropriate behaviors, pedagogy, and effective classroom management techniques where student behaviors are often seen as a choice rather than a survival mechanism. Applying neuroscience and the trauma-responsive lens described in this eBook goes beyond those practices and may require a shift in your perspective and practice in order to acknowledge and manage such behaviors. As you continue through this eBook, we challenge you to look beyond the behavior the child displays (Souers & Hall, 2016) and find ways to proactively support, understand, and regulate the child when needed.

The Becoming Trauma Responsive documentary and subsequent eBook companion was developed to serve as a practical guide and a small dose of professional development with bite-sized ideas to give a quick overview of what trauma is, how it’s impacting our students and children, and what we can do to help understand and support the needs of students and individuals impacted by trauma.

This eBook companion is written to be as user-friendly as possible for anyone interested in supporting students or children. We know there is an ever-growing need in schools to better support students who have experienced traumas. The people working with those students may include teachers, school counselors, school psychologists, social workers, administrators, and school staff. In addition, there are likely many who can apply this information in supporting students and children outside of the classroom, including mental health providers, therapists, families, and caregivers of any kind. To be as inclusive as possible in this eBook, we wish to acknowledge all educators, mental health providers, and caregivers by using the term “helpers” to identify those who are interested in supporting children P-12. The authors recognize and hope that you and many others may find value within this work.

Hopefully this book 1) helps you learn something practical you can quickly implement, 2) offers reassurance that you are doing many good things already, and 3) reminds you that your power to help others lies within your intentionality, positivity, and the connecting relationships that you develop.

Special thank you to Dr. Ken Hughey, Dr. Judy Hughey, Dr. Rick Gaskill, Ann Thomas, Mallory Jacobs, Foster Adopt Connect, The Children’s Place, USD 501 Topeka Public Schools, Nathan Ross, and Laura Bonella

References

Bonella, L., Carroll, D., Jobe, M., Kaff, M., Lane, J. J., Martinez, T., McKeeman, L., & Shuman, C. (2020). Access, engagement, and resilience during COVID-19 remote learning [White paper]. Kansas State University College of Education. https://coe.k-state.edu/research/documents/KSU-COE-White-Paper-7-2020.pdf

Souers, K. & Hall, P. (2016). Fostering resilient learners: Strategies for creating a trauma-sensitive classroom. ASCD.