This tool kit describes how trauma exposure impacts students' performance and behavior and provides a compendium of programs for schools to support the long-term recovery of traumatized students. It also compares the programs with one another.

In this galvanizing book for all educators, Kristin Souers and Pete Hall explore an urgent and growing issue--childhood trauma--and its profound effect on learning and teaching. Grounded in research and the authors' experience working with trauma-affected students and their teachers, Fostering Resilient Learners will help you cultivate a trauma-sensitive learning environment for students across all content areas, grade levels, and educational settings. The authors--a mental health therapist and a veteran principal--provide proven, reliable strategies to help you * Understand what trauma is and how it hinders the learning, motivation, and success of all students in the classroom. * Build strong relationships and create a safe space to enable students to learn at high levels. * Adopt a strengths-based approach that leads you to recalibrate how you view destructive student behaviors and to perceive what students need to break negative cycles. * Head off frustration and burnout with essential self-care techniques that will help you and your students flourish. Each chapter also includes questions and exercises to encourage reflection and extension of the ideas in this book. As an educator, you face the impact of trauma in the classroom every day. Let this book be your guide to seeking solutions rather than dwelling on problems, to building relationships that allow students to grow, thrive, and--most assuredly--learn at high levels.

The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.

Selected as a "Favorite Book for Educators in 2018" by Greater Good. From the author of Mindfulness for Teachers, a guide to supporting trauma-exposed students. Fully half the students in U.S. schools have experienced trauma, violence, or chronic stress. In the face of this epidemic, it falls increasingly to teachers to provide the adult support these students need to function in school. But most educators have received little training to prepare them for this role. In her new book, Tish Jennings—an internationally recognized leader in the field of social and emotional learning—shares research and experiential knowledge about the practices that support students' healing, build their resilience, and foster compassion in the classroom. In Part I, Jennings describes the effects of trauma on body and mind, and how to recognize them in students' behavior. In Part II, she introduces the trauma-sensitive practices she has implemented in her work with schools. And in Part III, she connects the dots between mindfulness, compassion, and resilience. Each chapter contains easy-to-use, practical activities to hone the skills needed to create a compassionate learning environment.

Traumatic or adverse experiences are pervasive among school-aged children and youth. Trauma undermines students' ability to learn, form relationships, and manage their feelings and behavior. School-based professionals working with traumatized students are often unaware of their complex needs or how to meet them within the hours of the typical school day. The second edition of Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students is a comprehensive guide for understanding and assisting students with a history of trauma. Designed specifically for professionals in mental health and education settings, this volume combines content and expertise from practitioners, researchers, and other experts with backgrounds in education, school psychology, school social work, school administration, resilience, school policy, and trauma. The book provides a thorough background on current research in trauma and its impact on school functioning; administrative and policy considerations; and a broad set of practical and implementable strategies and resources for adapting and differentiating instruction, modifying the classroom and school environments, and building competency for students and staff. New chapters address topics such as post-traumatic growth, interpersonal violence, and trauma screening and assessment among others. Educators can continue to use this updated edition as a reference and ongoing resource, with the ability to quickly and easily access a variety of school-based strategies to help improve educational and social outcomes for traumatized students.

Use trauma-informed strategies to give students the skills and support they need to succeed in school and life Nearly half of all children have been exposed to at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE), such as poverty, divorce, neglect, homelessness, substance abuse, domestic violence, or parent incarceration. These students often enter school with behaviors that don’t blend well with the typical school environment. How can a school community come together and work as a whole to establish a healthy social-emotional climate for students and the staff who support them? This workbook-style resource shows K-12 educators how to make a whole-school change, where strategies are integrated from curb to classroom. Readers will learn how to integrate trauma-informed strategies into daily instructional practice through expanded focus on: The different experiences and unique challenges of students impacted by ACEs in urban, suburban, and rural schools, including suicidal tendencies, cyberbullying, and drugs Behavior as a form of communication and how to explicitly teach new behaviors How to mitigate trauma and build innate resiliency through a read, reflect, and respond model Let this book be the tool that helps your teams move students away from the school-to-prison pipeline and toward a life rich with educational and career choices. "I cannot think of a book more needed than this one. It gives us the tools to support our students who have the most need while practicing the self-care necessary to continue to serve them." —Lydia Adegbola, Chair of English Department New Rochelle High School, NY "This book highlights the impact of trauma on children and the adults who work with them, while providing relevant and practical strategies to understand and address it through reflective practices." —Marine Avagyan, Director, Curriculum and Instruction Saugus Union School District, Sunland, CA

This game-changing book reveals the extraordinary results of focusing on our children’s strengths rather than always trying to correct their weaknesses. By showing us how to throw the ‘strength switch’, Dr Lea Waters demonstrates how we can help our children build resilience, optimism and achievement. As a strength-based scientist for more than 20 years, Waters has seen how this approach enhances self-esteem and energy in both children and teenagers – and how parents find it an exciting and rewarding way to raise them. In The Strength Switch, Dr Lea Waters shows you how to: The Strength Switch will show parents that a small shift can yield enormous results. "As parents, we often obsess about fixing our children’s weaknesses and neglect the importance of developing their strengths. This book is full of concrete ideas on how to change that." - Adam Grant, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take "Practical tips for parents from the wise and wonderful Lea Waters! So many parents, including me, struggle to translate scientific research into real-world strategies. This terrific book not only helps us understand ourselves and our children better but also makes that understanding actionable!" - Angela Duckworth, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Grit.

When children experience upheaval and trauma, adults often view them as either vulnerable and helpless or as resilient and able to easily “bounce back.” But the reality is far more complex for the children and youth whose lives are suddenly upended by disaster. How are children actually affected by catastrophic events and how do they cope with the damage and disruption? Children of Katrina offers one of the only long-term, multiyear studies of young people following disaster. Sociologists Alice Fothergill and Lori Peek spent seven years after Hurricane Katrina interviewing and observing several hundred children and their family members, friends, neighbors, teachers, and other caregivers. In this book, they focus intimately on seven children between the ages of three and eighteen, selected because they exemplify the varied experiences of the larger group. They find that children followed three different post-disaster trajectories—declining, finding equilibrium, and fluctuating—as they tried to regain stability. The children’s moving stories illuminate how a devastating disaster affects individual health and well-being, family situations, housing and neighborhood contexts, schooling, peer relationships, and extracurricular activities. This work also demonstrates how outcomes were often worse for children who were vulnerable and living in crisis before the storm. Fothergill and Peek clarify what kinds of assistance children need during emergency response and recovery periods, as well as the individual, familial, social, and structural factors that aid or hinder children in getting that support.

Helping Children Cope with Trauma bridges theory and practice in examining emerging approaches to enhancing resilience and treating traumatised children. Adopting a child-centred perspective, it highlights the importance of the synergy between individual, family, community and social interventions for recovery from post-traumatic stress. Consisting of chapters by an international range of contributors, the book is presented in three sections, reflecting the ecological circles of support that facilitate healthy development in the face of traumatic circumstances. Section 1, Individual, addresses the impact of exposure to trauma and loss on post-traumatic adaptation, focusing on biological aspects, attachment patterns, emotion regulation and aggressive behaviour in children. Section 2, Family, looks at the concept of family resilience, the impact of trauma on playfulness in toddlers and parents, innovative models for working with children traumatised by war, domestic violence and poverty and describes the challenges faced by refugee families in the light of intergenerational transmission of trauma. Section 3, Community, broadly explores the concept of community resilience and preparedness, the centrality of the school in the community during times of war and conflict, post-traumatic distress and resilience in diverse cultural contexts and the impact of trauma work on mental health professionals who live and work in shared traumatic realities. The book concludes with a theoretical discussion of the concept of Survival Mode as an organisng principle for understanding post-traumatic phenomena. Helping Children Cope with Trauma will provide mental health professionals, child welfare workers, educators, child development experts and researchers with a thorough understanding of the needs of children after trauma and how those needs may best be met.