School Settings

This section of the portal offers trauma-informed resources for professionals working in schools.

Guides & Fact Sheets

Complex Trauma: Facts for Educators

Created by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

This fact sheet helps educators and school staff recognize the signs and symptoms of complex trauma and offers recommendations on how to help students heal.

Child Trauma Toolkit for Educators

Created by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

This toolkit provides school administrators, teachers, staff, and concerned parents with basic information about working with traumatized children in the school system.

Attachment Disturbances and Managing Challenging Behaviour Within the School

Created by the Child and Parent Resource Institute (CPRI).

This page illustrates the importance of taking into account the attachment of the child exhibiting challenging behaviours and offers tips for teachers.

Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools: Brief Tips & Policy Recommendations

Created by the National Association of School Psychologists.

This fact sheet addresses how childhood adversity, toxic stress, and trauma can negatively impact students’ ability to thrive in school, at home, and throughout life.

Videos & Webniars

5 Core Ideas of Helping Traumatized Children Learn

This Youtube Channel offers videos on the impacts of trauma on learning, behavior and relationships.

- Created by Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI).

A School’s Role in Keeping Our Kids Safe

This video was produced to equip all school staff members with the information and competencies to recognize potential child abuse and know what to do if abuse is suspected.

- Created by the Luna Centre.

A Comprehensive Examination of Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Abuse; Neglect; and Exposure to Domestic Violence on School Engagement

This panel, presented during the 2022 Trauma Symposium, addresses how understanding school disengagement can help provide targeted prevention and intervention strategies in order to mitigate substance use, delinquency, and dropping out. It also focuses on the importance of considering child interpersonal trauma as a risk factor for these adverse outcomes.

- By Jocelyn Van Dyke & Shannon Stewart.

Adverse Childhood Experiences for Schools – A MindEd e-Learning Training

This webinar provides information on schools as a key setting to identify and intervene to mitigate the impact of adversity associated with the pandemic and other stressors, associated with a significant increase in concerning mental health responses. The MindEd training for schools in ACEs is a potentially valuable approach that is firmly rooted in a long-standing approach to working with adversity that considers not only traumatic responses but also risk and protective factors. More precisely, these topics were discussed: development of resilience; general classroom management; anxiety and distress in the classroom; internalizing difficulties; and behavioural issues in the classroom.

- Created by The Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Websites

Trauma-Informed Schools

Created by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

This part of the website, dedicated to trauma-informed systems, offers tools and materials to help educators, school staff, and administrators understand and respond to the specific needs of traumatized children. It presents the essential elements of a trauma-informed school system and offers resources divided by resource type, trauma type, language, audience and other.

Safe and Resilient School Communities Before, During, and After Trauma

Created by the Center for Safe and Resilient Schools and Workplaces.

This website provides education and mental health professionals resources to integrate trauma-informed practices into their settings so they can become trauma-informed environments.

HEARTS: Healthy Environments and Response to Trauma in School

Created by HEARTS at University of California San Francisco and ETR.

This website promotes school success by collaborating with school systems to create more trauma-informed, safe, supportive, and equitable school cultures and climates that foster resilience, wellness, and racial justice for everyone in the school community.