In this week’s episode of Innovations in Education, hosted by Kevin Hogan:

• 3 key actions for trauma-informed student support
• 6 ways administrators can address teacher burnout in their schools
• Fostering student well-being with Microsoft Education Solutions

Most every K–12 teacher or administrator can anecdotally describe the mental health and wellness challenges their students now face. Statistically, it’s overwhelming—more than one-third (37 percent) of high school students report that they experienced poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic and 44 percent of them reported they felt persistently sad or hopeless during the past year.

The degree and types of trauma students now face can be measured as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) that demand deliberate and focused school-based supports that can mitigate the ACE’s impact on a student. We have talked for years about the challenges students face, but it is now time to actualize support systems that not only re-engage, but keep students engaged in their learning.

ACEs are traumatic experiences that occur in childhood, such as experiencing violence, abuse, neglect, and even economic and health disruptions. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 61 percent of adults surveyed across 25 different states reported experiencing at least one type of ACE before age 18, and 1 in 6 adults reported experiencing 4 or more types of ACEs. While ACEs don’t have a single cause, they do have lasting, negative effects on health, well-being, education and even job potential. Toxic stress from ACEs affects a child’s brain development, immune systems, and stress-response, leading to a decrease in a child’s attention, decision-making abilities, and learning. Yet, students often lack access to proper support.

This lack of support may be as simple as proper record keeping or as complex as systemic inequities leading to inconsistent supports. According to a February 2019 report from ASCA, students of color and students from low-income families are often shortchanged, receiving unequal access to school counselors or attending a school with too few school counselors. The pandemic upended education and the support systems schools and districts had in place for students. In addition, the CDC warns of an accelerating mental health crisis among adolescents. Just in March, the CDC shared new data on students’ well-being, illuminating the mental health threats students face.

Every day a student suffers unsupported, they become less likely to stay engaged in their learning. School leaders must recognize the trauma students have undergone, as well as the concerns around students’ mental health and well-being. It’s also important to understand that even as educators, we can’t just jump in and fix things as ACEs consist of multiple complex factors.

Regardless, educators can immediately implement three key actions that support students with trauma-informed mindfulness:

1. Monitor student behaviors

The pandemic had an enormous effect on students nationwide. While educators did a tremendous job ensuring learning continued, students (as well as adults) went through months of social isolation, anxiousness, and difficulties. Students stressed about their parents losing their jobs, the health of their friends and families, and even lost loved ones to COVID-19. The trauma that stems from the pandemic and those life-changing events isn’t disappearing now that students are back in classrooms.

While the awareness of trauma-informed teaching has been a concept I have grappled with, teaching amidst the COVID-19 pandemic has moved this concept to the forefront in terms of how to be effective as a trauma-informed educator in the virtual classroom. 

Trauma is prevalent in the lives of both educators and learners.  Though prevalent, it can also be silent in that it is not always a visible or known quantity.  Living through a pandemic, by its very nature, has been traumatic for everyone and it is important to debrief and reflect on the failures and successes of our educational practices during this time.

It may be surprising to learn that as of 2020, according to the CDC-Kaiser Ace Study, up to two-thirds of U.S. children have experienced at least one type of serious childhood trauma.  Some examples include abuse, neglect, or witnessing violence.  Trauma may be the largest public health issue facing our children today (CDC, 2019).  It is imperative that we are not only aware of these statistics but that we act on known strategies that help our students cope with trauma so that they can meet with success in both in-person and virtual classroom spaces.

Edtech tools help facilitate trauma-informed teaching in a big way

Looking back on last school year, many edtech tools have emerged and been thoroughly explored by educators in a way that was not always possible prior to the pandemic, mainly due to time constraints that come from things like sports games, social gatherings, music lessons, carpooling, and all of the other activities that previously occupied our calendars. 

We’ve all been through a traumatic experience in the last year. In a typical year, school is the only safe place for many students, and it is often the place where abuse or other trauma is recognized and help provided. But during remote learning, those children suddenly had no safe place to go and no adults to recognize the danger they were in and offer a lifeline.

As children return to school this fall, here’s how educators can spot those who may need mental health support, and a few suggestions for offering help.

Adverse childhood experiences

According to a study by the CDC and Kaiser Permanente, 10 adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) include the following:

• Physical, emotional. or sexual abuse;
• Physical or emotional neglect; and
• Household dysfunction (mental illness, incarcerated relatives, substance abuse, divorce, and violent treatment towards a parent).

According to the CDC, many of us will suffer ACEs: 61 percent of adults had at least one ACE, and 16 percent experienced four or more. Recent studies, including the Philadelphia ACE Project, have explored community-level trauma and now include witnessing violence, experiencing discrimination, adverse neighborhood experiences, being bullied, and living in foster care as additional ACEs.

Researchers are exploring the impact of living in communities with broad exposure to adverse experiences, and most certainly, the pandemic of the past year added yet another layer of complexity. Children living in families where abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction were present before the pandemic may have experienced even more trauma throughout the quarantine due to the isolation that left them without opportunities to contact positive adults and form relationships with a support system outside the home. Families with members suffering from mental illness may have found it difficult to continue treatment or find support. Families living in communities that also experience significant levels of adversity may have had even more exposure to ACEs.

Some moments in life are unforgettable. For me, the experience of evacuating from New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina with my two young children and pup is one of those moments. Katrina became a marker in the life of our family. We used to talk about the timeline of our experiences in terms of “before Katrina” or “after Katrina.” While our home only sustained significant wind damage but no flooding, we witnessed firsthand the considerable tragedy across the city.

My husband is a Coast Guard pilot and was part of the rescue efforts immediately after the storm. As a young mother and teacher, I was focused on setting up a temporary home in San Antonio, TX. I had very little information on how long we would be living in Texas, whether my house was destroyed, what would happen to my teaching job and salary, and how long I would be apart from my husband. The uncertainty combined with the sudden nature of the disaster was, at times, almost too much to bear. I spent hours watching the news showing pictures of people on roofs trying to survive the flooding and the helicopters bravely swarming the airspace to save as many people as possible.

After two months, in October, we were able to return to the city once electricity was restored to our area on the west side of the river. Imagine a home in the deep heat of a New Orleans summer, closed, with no electricity or air conditioning. Imagine a refrigerator and freezer in that house with food left behind. Imagine thousands of those! Imagine wind and water damage and destroyed backyards, sheds, patios, and plants. We returned to that scene, and we were by far one of the lucky ones! We focused on cleaning out our home for several weeks, installing a blue FEMA tarp over a damaged roof, burning the left-behind branches and fallen trees in our yard, and attempting to find food and water. We were grateful for organizations that sent volunteers to cook, assisted with cutting down trees, and did various other tasks.

Through the experiences of Katrina and the subsequent return to school, I learned how essential community and belonging are in our human experience. Healing from trauma requires relationships and grace. Our society does not always prioritize the humanity in each of us, and we must learn to renew our focus on these key needs as we enter school this fall.

Back to school

Later in October, our local charter school determined they were ready to open back up. I remember arriving as a teacher that day in the gym, gathering for the first time to learn how this new opening would take place. I remember the six children who arrived with eager faces, ready to try to find normalcy—only to find a relatively empty school and so many of their friends missing from their seats. I remember my own children as they felt both happy to be back at home and sad that so many friends did not return. The aftermath of Katrina was devastating, and it impacted everything. The instability that many children and adults felt was significant.

While the awareness of trauma-informed teaching has been a concept I have grappled with, teaching amidst the COVID-19 pandemic has moved this concept to the forefront in terms of how to be effective as a trauma-informed educator in the virtual classroom. 

Trauma is prevalent in the lives of both educators and learners.  Though prevalent, it can also be silent in that it is not always a visible or known quantity.  Living through a pandemic, by its very nature, has been traumatic for everyone and it is important to debrief and reflect on the failures and successes of our educational practices during this time.

It may be surprising to learn that as of 2020, according to the CDC-Kaiser Ace Study, up to two-thirds of U.S. children have experienced at least one type of serious childhood trauma.  Some examples include abuse, neglect, or witnessing violence.  Trauma may be the largest public health issue facing our children today (CDC, 2019).  It is imperative that we are not only aware of these statistics but that we act on known strategies that help our students cope with trauma so that they can meet with success in both in-person and virtual classroom spaces.

Edtech tools help facilitate trauma-informed teaching in a big way

Looking back on this past school year, many edtech tools have emerged and been thoroughly explored by educators in a way that was not always possible prior to the pandemic, mainly due to time constraints that come from things like sports games, social gatherings, music lessons, carpooling, and all of the other activities that previously occupied our calendars. 

There’s no doubt that the pandemic has been traumatic for children and adults alike. District and school staff member must remain especially diligent in being aware of and implementing strategies that help mitigate trauma.

A trauma-informed approach means teachers, administrators, staff, students and families recognize the behavioral, emotional, relational and academic impact of trauma, and address the impact through developing skills and providing specific trauma-informed supports.

Related content: 3 ways to combine trauma-informed teaching with SEL

There are four key pillars that guide educators in following a trauma-informed approach: focusing on wellness, building relationships, providing predictability and addressing students’ regulation deficits.

This post will explore the impact of trauma, provide an overview of each pillar and provide strategies for incorporating trauma-informed practices in remote, hybrid and in-person classrooms.

The impact of trauma: What are Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)?

In the mid 90’s, Dr. Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda studied over 17,000 adults in an effort to understand more about stressful or traumatic childhood experiences, like neglect, abuse and family turmoil. They called these types of events “Adverse Childhood Experiences”, or ACEs.

When trauma goes unacknowledged by caring adults, students can feel suffocated by the burden of their experience. Research shows that traumatic experiences can drastically hinder students’ academic development, and that “children who have three or more Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are three times more likely to experience academic failure, five times more likely to have attendance problems, and six times more likely to have behavioral problems than those with no ACEs.“

These findings, coupled with the fact that almost half of the students in the U.S. have experienced at least one or more traumatic experiences presents a significant barrier to academic success for a large population of students.

Related content: 3 ways our school is fighting back against trauma

As educators, we work with a diverse group of students, not only in the range of their academic abilities, but also in their various experiences and social-emotional needs. The goal of trauma-informed teaching is to help all students feel known and supported. And the good news is that today, we know that using trauma-informed teaching strategies can benefit all students, regardless of their experiences.