The American Psychological Association’s website defines trauma as “an emotional response to a terrible event.” Terrible events can be abuse or neglect but also can include societal-level events such as pandemics, natural disasters, and systemic discrimination. Nearly every school-aged child today has experienced trauma in one form or another.
Last month, my colleague Dr. Roscoe Scarborough used this column to highlight the mental health crisis currently facing youth in America. Much of this crisis is due to trauma and to our generally being ill-prepared to help children process and heal from trauma. Even those who are trauma-informed (know about trauma) often are not trained to be trauma-responsive (know what to do about it).
It is a big deal, then, that College of Coastal Georgia’s Department of Education and Teacher Preparation recently entered into a partnership with local non-profit Hope 1312 Collective that will equip teachers to begin addressing this crisis.
On March 17, Coastal’s senior cohorts of elementary and middle-grades teacher candidates participated in 8 hours of Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI)® trauma-responsive classrooms training. This first annual training was provided by Hope 1312 Collective and sponsored by College of Coastal Georgia and Communities in Schools.
Traditional disciplinary models use punitive measures with the aim of getting immediate compliance. These models are short-sighted, do not respect the biological needs of children, leave us emotionally and often physically disconnected from our students, and do not lead to lasting change. TBRI offers strategies that are biologically respectful, see and meet needs behind behaviors, encourage connection, and promote healing rather than re-traumatization.
TBRI was developed by the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development (KPICD) at Texas Christian University and is described by KPICD as “An attachment-based, trauma-informed intervention that is designed to meet the complex needs of vulnerable children.” TBRI addresses the five B’s of relational trauma: brain, biology, body, beliefs, and behavior. The trauma-responsive classrooms curriculum begins with a deep dive into the ways that trauma affects a child’s brain development and their biological response to stress or fear. Teachers are best able to respond to their students’ trauma-related behaviors if they understand what is going on inside the brain and biology contributing to the behavior.
Teacher candidates then learned about the importance of making sure the body’s nutritional and sensory needs are met so that their students are physically capable of learning, growing, and making good choices. Children who have experienced trauma are especially likely to have sensory needs unlike those of their other classmates – need for movement or touch, sensitivity to light or sounds, etc. Understanding how to recognize and respond to a child experiencing sensory deficit or overload helps a teacher see the need behind behavior that may seem willfully noncompliant but is instead the body’s or brain’s way of communicating the need.
Finally, participants learned several practical tools for correcting behavior in ways that encourage connection with students and that reflect a child’s preciousness rather than reinforcing negative belief systems caused by trauma (e.g. feeling unworthy or like their voice does not matter).
When surveyed, fewer than half of participating teacher candidates (7 of 16) said they feel behaviors are managed effectively at the schools where they are currently student-teaching. And after the training, students felt better equipped personally to respond to a traumatized child. Moreover, all agreed TBRI would make a lasting impact within the school system.
Data shows they are right. TBRI does make a lasting impact within the school system. A recent study of TBRI implementation in a school in Tulsa found an 18% decrease in behavioral incident reports after 2 years of TBRI and a 23% decrease in office referrals for students who had been referred 3 or more times prior to TBRI implementation.
Given the right positive influences, the brain has the ability to heal from the effects of trauma. TBRI gives Coastal’s teacher candidates the tools to be part of that healing.
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Dr. Melissa Trussell is a professor in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia who works with the college’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. Contact her at mtrussell@ccga.edu.
Reg Murphy Center