Meeting students where they are: Addressing diverse experiences of childhood adversity in rural schools and communities

• In Event: 2021 Education Research Service Project Invited Poster Session

Abstract

There are few models for supporting trauma-informed wraparound service models in rural schools. Building service networks centered on schools in rural communities requires attention to distance and remoteness in service provision, small faculties and limited institutional capacity, dense rural social networks, and close, but often ambivalent school-community relationships. The Cobscook Community Learning Center has pioneered an approach to traumainformed wraparound services to support student learning designed in partnership with three rural schools and communities. To better understand the ways in which their program provides culturally and socially responsive services to youth and families in rural Maine, Specifically, the following questions guided the study: How does the TREE program affect the educational and social experiences of students and their families in the three TREE pilot schools? This study proposes to conduct eight in-depth case studies of students and caregivers receiving varying levels of services from the TREE program, including families with intensive, medium and light levels of engagement with services at each site. These case studies will lay the groundwork for a more extensive program evaluation that focuses on whole school effects by purposely selecting cases that reflect the diversity of the population within these schools. By understanding how a variety of families and students interact with the program over time, the organization can better leverage services which are meeting families’ needs and work to overcome barriers that families experience in accessing their services.

Author

• Catharine Biddle, University of Maine