Supported & partially funded by the Van Otterloo Family Foundation.
The Lesley Institute for Trauma Sensitivity (LIFTS), in collaboration with the Essex County Learning Community, is presenting a three-day online conference focusing on school re-entry during the Covid pandemic. School administrators, faculty, and other education professionals from North Shore communities in Massachusetts will explore how to address the multi-dimensional impacts of this universal traumatic experience. Our goal is to support educators in providing safe and supportive learning environments for all students when schools reopen.
Among the topics addressed during the conference will be :
Serving Students Across Learning Difference
Social Emotional Leadership
Equity and Learning
Educator Stress and Wellbeing
Holistic Student Assessment and Data-Based Inquiry
Importance of Universal Design for Learning in Difficult Times
Further information will be posted here when available.
The convening is primarily for North Shore schools (Essex County, Massachusetts), we welcome all educators as space allows.
We will share thoughts, ideas & strategies after the convening.
Joe Mageary, PhD, LMHC, CCMHC
Assistant Professor/Director of Field Training, Counseling and Psychology at Lesley University
Cultivating Personal Narratives: Towards Creating Healing Environments
As we are forced to constantly adapt to changes around us, too often the opportunity to step back and understand a situation or a problem gets sacrificed in the name of needing to solve the problem. This exercise will provide participants with the opportunity to experience the importance of “understanding” and storytelling in the process of healing from distress. A vehicle for healing, meaning making, and transformation in cultures throughout time, storytelling is a coping skill and resilience-building tool to which we all have access. Furthermore, cultivating coherent narratives can be an important part of processing difficult and/or harmful events and can be a keystone experience in creating what is referred to as a Healing Environment. Through this experience, participants will gain first-hand knowledge of the purpose and power of creating trauma-informed Healing Environments, with the hope that this information can be taken back to, and shared with, the schools systems within which the participants work.
Joel Ristuccia, Lead Instructor/ Mentor
North Shore Convening Presentation
Trauma Sensitive Action Planning During Covid-19
Educators are very aware that they face a range of concerns in their schools as a result of Covid-19. including staff, student and family related issues. A number of outside groups and organizations have been providing schools with suggestions, lists of “needed actions” and mandates to direct schools in what and how they should address these issues. While these suggestions and lists of best thinking are useful in identifying areas of concern, there is no one size fits all solution and the proliferation of these ideas from outside the school can further burden already overwhelmed educators.
Empowered, trauma sensitive, school communities follow a process of gathering information and data from stakeholders, reflecting on this information to identify their priorities and developing workable action plans to address them . Their action plans are guided by trauma sensitive norms and values (The same norms and values that underlie the Safe and Supportive Schools legislation of 2014) and within the individual school’s capacity to execute. In a time of uncertainty and ongoing concern for our health and well-being, trauma sensitive reflection and action planning is an effective tool to reestablish our agency as a school community, focus on those areas where we have influence and address our concerns in a trauma sensitive manner.