As an Approach….

it takes into consideration practices to create trauma sensitive classrooms, but also allow us opportunities to regularly assess our strategies to integrate anti-racism work into our current practices, and in turn build resiliency within our students and educators.

We understand that a trauma informed classroom is one in which students are given control of their choices, with the understanding that behavioral and emotional issues exhibited by students, may in fact reflect a students difficulty in that moment to regulate their emotions. Throughout our model, we will help you to understand ways to discuss racism and engage in difficult conversations, and evaluate concepts of racial identity, bias, racism, and privilege. Our approach works with the understanding that children with social, emotional, and learning difficulties, may have had past trauma, and we do not want to further re-traumatize our students through our responses.

Because…

it is not the responsibility of our students to fit into our rigid school structures, rather it is our job to mold the school environment around the needs of the students and communities. In order to do this, we must first learn to acknowledge and respond to the identities of our students, as it is critical to meet their needs and create safe spaces for them to learn and grow. As we learn about our students identities, we can facilitate spaces where students are encouraged to own their identities and feel a sense of belonging with their whole self. Taking one more step, we must practice self care and awareness, and understand how our own trauma impacts our reactions, being mindful of what helps and what hurts the relationship when we are responding to our students needs.

Five Level Educator Plan

We use this plan as a guide to support schools and other settings as they reflect on current strategies, develop a comprehensive plan, as well as regularly assess for areas of opportunities and improvements.

Jacqueline A. Rhew & Robin Choquette, PsyD