With all the demands and mandates coming at us as educators, why should you understand the impacts of traumatic experiences on student learning and consider creating a safe and supportive trauma-sensitive school? The reasons are compelling. First, research clearly shows that the vast majority, if not all of our students, experience some form of adverse childhood experience (ACE), meaning that it is essentially a universal experience for our students. The potential impacts of these experiences for our students can cover a broad range of areas, including academic, behavioral, and relational impacts, and therefore can impact student learning in a number of ways.

Addressing the impacts of traumatic experience on student learning is based on two core elements-Whole child and harnessing the power of community. The whole child keeps the interrelatedness of the various components of the whole child, competence, relationships, self-regulation, and physical health/wellbeing, and their impacts on student learning front and center. Community connections in our classrooms and schools, including the related social networks, are not only important for students impacted by traumatic experiences but are also essential to all of us we are at our core social beings.

Creating Safe and Supportive Trauma-Sensitive learning environments in our schools and our classrooms begins with inquiry. What are my concerns and priorities for my classroom/my school? Having these ”local” priorities front and center, creating an SSTSS is about developing an action plan to address these priorities. An action plan that is guided by our shared understanding of the impacts of trauma on student learning and a resultant set of “Attributes” or norms/values that define safe and supportive trauma-sensitive. Driven by our local urgencies and guided by the Attributes, the action plan contains those action steps we can take as a school or classroom community to address our school-based concerns and create a Safe and Supportive Trauma-Sensitive School. Finally, experience has shown that when developing an action plan, small actions can have BIG impacts.