3/5/2020 Creating Trauma Informed Classrooms: Practical Strategies for Educators Presented by: Elena Jimenez, LCSW School Mental Health & Laura Zeff, BCBA Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports/Restorative Practices Student Health and Human Services Los Angeles Unified School District • Understand the impact of trauma on brain development and how it manifests in the classroom. • Enhance knowledge and skills in prevention and response strategies. • Develop personalized action plans, including strategies and resources, to use in their classrooms and schools. 1
3/5/2020 Los Angeles Unified School District • 1386 Schools & Centers • 710 square miles • 673,849 Students PreK-Adult • 8500 Foster Care • 19,500+ Homeless • 80% Free/Reduced Lunch • 66,523 Employees • 6 Local Districts LAUSD 2
3/5/2020 LAUSD School Experience Survey Results Staff responses: • Disruptive student behavior is not a problem at this school. • Strongly disagree and disagree • Elementary School 32% • Middle School 35% • High School 39% Prevalence of Trauma in LAUSD 3
3/5/2020 • Experiences or situations that: • are overwhelming • threaten one’s physical/ mental well-being • leave one feeling helpless and fearful • impact one’s relationships and belief systems What is Trauma? Social emotional buffering, parental resilience, early detection, and/or effective Three Types intervention of Stress Intense, prolonged, repeated & unaddressed 4
3/5/2020 Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) 5
3/5/2020 Impact on Learning, Behavior, and Relationships • paying attention to & following • development of • feeling safe and trusting classroom tasks & instructions language & others communication skills • ability to process social clues • building secure • ability to organize & • labeling and talking about relationships with adults remember new feelings in an appropriate way and classmates in school information • self-regulating behaviors, • initiating and cultivating • creative play including increased aggressive healthy relationships with and impulsive behaviors others Trauma Exposure & The Brain 6
3/5/2020 • Trauma-informed practice is a paradigm shift – shifting away from the deficit/blaming model to “acknowledging that early adversity has played a role in neural development.” (Craig, 2016) • When we don’t recognize the underlying trauma, we tend to punish people who offend against our sense of what is ‘right’ or we stigmatize and exclude them. (Echo Parenting) Changing Our Lens Perspective… • When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change… 7
3/5/2020 The Paradigm Shift • Adults become trauma and resiliency informed. • A shift in perspective where a cooperative and collaborative approach is adopted. • Behavior is seen as both a symptom and vehicle to communicate. • Students’ needs are addressed in a holistic manner. Practice saying it differently… DONT’s DO’s What is wrong with you? What happened to you? Why don’t you care about others? Do you feel like others don’t care about you? Do you want to end up in jail? Where do you see yourself in the future? You can’t be mad about that! I am curious about what you are feeling/thinking right now? What were you thinking? Tell me what happened? 8
3/5/2020 Six Big Ideas to Foster Resilience in the Classroom 1. Trust – Building genuine and authentic relationships 2. Safety – Creating physical, emotional and psychological safe environments 3. Predictability – Establishing and maintaining structures, routines and transitions 4. Choices – Offering multiple options 5. Regulation – Teaching and modeling the ability to calm self 6. Support – Teaching and modeling, not punishing 9
3/5/2020 1 Tru rust – Building genuine and authentic relationships • Follow through with your promises • Be transparent especially when you cannot avoid changes in a situation • Build and maintain positive, healthy relationships • Be that healthy adult in the life of a student • Learn about the student’s interests • Respond to requests in a timely manner; follow through • Validate concerns, even if you don’t agree • Acknowledge positive efforts made by student • Suspend judgement Partnership communication Is about by building The Strategies we Emotional by understanding relationships communication can use to through connections process reduce the gap between people by interpreting by employing Non verbal communication Authentic by recognizing by understanding and facial & avoiding listening expressions Audience Interference Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving instruction, Jim Knight, 2007 10
3/5/2020 2 Safety – Creating physical, emotional and psychological safe environments • Build relationships • Every member feels respected, validated, and heard • 3-5 positively stated clear expectations (safe, respectful, responsible) • Taught, modeled, reinforced and corrected • Set the environment for success • Structure the space • Establish routines • Model and teach your expectations • Positively interact will ALL students • Correct behavioral errors • Observe and make decisions based on data 3 Predictability – Establishing and maintaining structures, routines and transitions • Class schedule/individual student schedule • Regular check-ins • Planning for transitions (play music, begin a rhythmic clapping pattern, call and response cheers, visual timer, etc. ) • Brain breaks 11
3/5/2020 4 Ch Choices – Offering multiple options • Maximize choice • Allow the student to choose which task to complete • The sequence of tasks to be completed (1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd …) • Which materials to use • Where to complete the task • When to complete the task • With whom to complete the task Support students (and yourself) in the learning and use self-regulation strategies 5 Regula latio ion – Teaching and modeling the ability to calm self 12
3/5/2020 Support – Teaching and modeling, not punishing 6 Six Big Ideas to Foster Resilience in the Classroom 1. Trust – Building genuine and authentic relationships 2. Safety – Creating physical, emotional and psychological safe environments 3. Predictability – Establishing and maintaining structures, routines and transitions 4. Choices – Offering multiple options 5. Regulation – Teaching and modeling the ability to calm self 6. Support – Teaching and modeling, not punishing 13
3/5/2020 For additional information, please contact: Elena Jimenez elena.jimenez@lausd.net Laura Zeff laura.zeff@lausd.net 14
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