Getting Started With Trauma-Informed Practices

Summary

This video script emphasizes the significance of being Trauma-Informed in educational settings. It discusses how diverse life experiences, including trauma, affect students' behaviors and learning abilities. Experts highlight the importance of human relationships and trust in mitigating stress and fostering a healing environment within schools. They advocate for teaching social and emotional skills, such as self-regulation and emotional expression, to support students' overall development and resilience.

Takeaways

• 🌐 Making the world a better place involves focusing on big questions and understanding diverse life experiences.
• 🧠 Being Trauma-Informed is crucial for educators to approach student behavior with empathy and understanding.
• 🏫 Schools should recognize the impact of adverse childhood experiences on learning and behavior.
• 🤝 The presence of trust and human relationships can act as an antidote to the stress caused by trauma.
• 💪 Schools have the potential to be healing places by fostering supportive relationships.
• 🧠 Fear, anxiety, and distraction can shut down the brain's ability to learn, emphasizing the need for emotional support.
• 🛠️ Social and emotional tools are essential for students to recover from challenges and regulate emotions.
• 👥 Classroom time should be dedicated to building foundational skills like self-regulation and relationship skills.
• 🌱 Understanding trauma's effects is necessary to create a responsive educational environment.
• 🤗 Self-awareness and emotional recognition are key components of trauma-informed education.
• 🌟 Positive affirmations and group activities can boost students' self-esteem and create a supportive classroom atmosphere.

Q & A

What does Lindsey believe is the key to making the world a better place?

Lindsey believes that being Trauma-Informed and having the right mindset is key to making the world a better place. This involves accepting that people come from varied life experiences, some of which may be traumatic.

How does Lindsey approach students' behaviors in her classroom?

Lindsey approaches students' behaviors by trying to understand the root cause rather than simply judging whether they are doing the right or wrong thing.

What are the potential negative effects of adverse childhood experiences on learning and behavior?

Adverse childhood experiences can cause overwhelming stress, leading to negative effects on the learning brain and behavior, including uneven development of foundational skills like self-regulation, executive function, and relationship skills.

What is the powerful antidote to stress mentioned by Dr. Cantor?

The powerful antidote to stress mentioned by Dr. Cantor is the effect of human relationships and the presence of trust.

Why are schools considered ideal places to produce relationships that buffer stress?

Schools are considered ideal places to produce relationships that buffer stress because they provide an environment where various kinds of supportive relationships can be formed.

How does Dr. Darling-Hammond explain the impact of fear, anxiety, and distraction on learning?

Dr. Darling-Hammond explains that fear, anxiety, and distraction can literally shut down the brain, making it impossible for students to learn effectively.

What are the social and emotional tools Dr. Darling-Hammond suggests schools should provide to students?

Dr. Darling-Hammond suggests schools should provide tools for perceiving emotions, discussing them, getting along with others, calming down when needed, and expressing needs so they can be met.

What does Dr. Cantor suggest is necessary to be responsive to the effects of trauma?

Dr. Cantor suggests that to be responsive to the effects of trauma, one needs to consider the environment, individual services, and the skills and mindsets of children.

How does Lindsey help students with self-awareness and emotion management?

Lindsey works on self-awareness by helping students name their emotions and then make choices around them, which is a strategy for managing emotions.

What is the boy's strategy for calming down when he gets mad?

The boy's strategy for calming down when he gets mad is to take deep breaths.

How does Dr. Darling-Hammond view the universal benefits of trauma-informed practices in schools?

Dr. Darling-Hammond views trauma-informed practices as beneficial for all students, as they help those who have experienced trauma deal with past events and prepare others to handle future challenges.

Outlines

00:00

🌍 Creating a Better World Through Trauma-Informed Mindset

The script begins with a girl asking about making the world a better place, leading Lindsey to discuss the importance of being Trauma-Informed. She emphasizes understanding the diverse life experiences students bring to school, some of which may include trauma. Lindsey explains that this perspective helps her focus on the root causes of students' behavior rather than just judging their actions. Dr. Cantor adds that adverse childhood experiences can hinder a child's development of foundational skills like self-regulation and executive function, but that human relationships and trust can be powerful antidotes to stress. Schools are highlighted as ideal places to foster these relationships and become healing environments. Dr. Darling-Hammond stresses that fear, anxiety, and distraction can shut down the brain's ability to learn, underscoring the need for social and emotional tools in education.

Keywords

💡Trauma-Informed

Trauma-Informed refers to an approach that recognizes the presence of trauma in individuals and acknowledges its impact on their behavior and mental health. In the video, Lindsey emphasizes the importance of understanding that students come from diverse backgrounds, some of which may include traumatic experiences. This approach is crucial for educators to address the root causes of student behavior rather than just the behavior itself.

💡Mindset

Mindset, in this context, refers to a teacher's attitude and perspective towards their students' experiences and behaviors. Lindsey discusses the importance of shifting the mindset from judging students' actions as right or wrong to understanding the origins of their behavior, which is a core aspect of being Trauma-Informed.

💡Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood, such as poverty, neglect, or exposure to violence. Dr. Cantor explains how these experiences can lead to overwhelming stress, affecting a child's brain development and behavior, which is a central theme in the video as it discusses the impact on learning and the need for support.

💡Self-Regulation

Self-regulation is the ability to manage one's emotions, behaviors, and thoughts effectively. Dr. Cantor mentions that children who experience adversity may have uneven development of foundational skills like self-regulation, which is essential for learning and social interaction.

💡Executive Function

Executive function refers to a set of cognitive processes that help in organizing, planning, and executing tasks. Dr. Cantor points out that adverse experiences can hinder the development of executive function, which is vital for academic success and life skills.

💡Relationship Skills

Relationship skills are the abilities required to interact and communicate effectively with others. The video highlights that children affected by trauma may struggle with relationship skills, and schools can play a role in fostering these skills through supportive relationships.

💡Human Relationship

Human relationships are interpersonal connections that can provide support and trust. Dr. Cantor discusses how the presence of human relationships can act as an antidote to stress, emphasizing the role of schools as places where these relationships can be fostered to buffer stress.

💡Healing

Healing, in the context of the video, refers to the process of recovery and growth from traumatic experiences. Dr. Darling-Hammond and Dr. Cantor suggest that schools can be places of healing by providing the necessary support and relationships to help students overcome adversity.

💡Social and Emotional Tools

Social and emotional tools are strategies and skills that help individuals manage their emotions and interact with others effectively. Dr. Darling-Hammond stresses the importance of teaching these tools in classrooms to help students recover from challenges and prepare for future adversities.

💡Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is the ability to recognize and understand one's own emotions and mental states. Lindsey works on self-awareness with her students, teaching them to name their emotions and make choices around them, which is a key strategy for managing behavior and emotions discussed in the video.

💡Resilience

Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties and adapt to adversity. The video implies that by understanding and responding to the effects of trauma, schools can help build resilience in students, preparing them to deal with future challenges.

Highlights

Making the world a better place starts with understanding and addressing trauma.

Being Trauma-Informed is about having the right mindset towards students' diverse experiences.

Trauma can manifest in various ways in the classroom, affecting behavior.

Adverse childhood experiences can cause overwhelming stress and hinder brain development.

The human relationship and trust can act as an antidote to stress.

Schools can be ideal places for building relationships that buffer stress.

Fear, anxiety, and distraction can shut down the brain's ability to learn.

Social and emotional tools are essential for students to recover from challenges.

Classroom time should be dedicated to building emotional intelligence and social skills.

Understanding the effects of trauma is crucial for creating a responsive learning environment.

Self-awareness and emotional naming are key skills for managing emotions.

Deep breathing is a practical technique for calming down when angry.

Supporting children who have experienced trauma benefits everyone.

Preparing children to deal with future challenges is as important as helping them with past trauma.

Positive affirmations, like 'We are awesome!', can boost self-esteem and group morale.

Transcripts

>>Girl: What does it mean to make the world a better place?

>>Lindsey: Nice! So those are those big questions we're focusing on.

>>Lindsey: For me, being Trauma-Informed has so much to do with mindset.

Accepting that different people come into a school setting

with incredibly varied life experiences.

Some of those life experiences may be traumatic and the way in which

that plays out in my particular classroom could look a number of ways

and by me having that lens, it makes it less

about are they doing the right thing or the wrong thing,

and more about where is that behavior coming from?

Why is that happening?

>>Dr Cantor: Adverse childhood experiences like poverty, neglect,

exposure to violence can bring about overwhelming stress,

which can cause negative effects on the learning brain and on behavior.

If children have the experience of adversity.

They will have uneven development of these foundational skills,

like self-regulation, and executive function, or relationship skills.

These are the children who are at risk to fall further and further behind.

But the good news is that there is a powerful antidote to stress

and that is the effect of the human relationship and the presence of trust.

Schools are an ideal place to produce many different kinds of relationships

that are capable of buffering stress.

Schools, themselves, can be healing places.

>>Dr Darling-Hammond: If you're fearful, if you're anxious, if you're distracted

about something that's happened to you, you literally can't learn.

Your brain shuts down.

So it's essential to give kids social and emotional tools that allow students

to recover from the challenges that they have experienced.

Take actual classroom time to work on the building blocks of how

to perceive your emotions, how to talk about them, how to get along

with other people, how to take a moment and become calm when you need to.

How to express your needs so that others can meet them.

>>Dr Cantor: When we start to understand what it takes to be responsive

to the effects of trauma, we need to think about the environment,

about individual services, and we need to think about the skills and mindsets

of kids that won't develop as they should when they're impacted by trauma.

>>Lindsey: I do a lot of work around self-awareness and being able

to name emotions and then make a choice around those.

>>Boy: When I get mad, I take deep breaths and that helps me get more calm.

>>Lindsey: Hm.

>>Dr Darling-Hammond: Many of the things we think about doing for who kids

who may have experienced trauma are good for everybody.

And everyone will encounter some kind of adverse circumstance

at some point in their life.

And for some children, we're helping them deal

with what's already happened in their lives.

For others, we're preparing them to deal

with the challenges later in their lives.

>>Lindsey: If you can hear my voice, say, "We are awesome!"

>>Class: [clapping] We are awesome!