Expanding Trauma-Informed Practice to Interrogate and Interrupt School-Based Trauma

• In Event: What’s Missing in Trauma-Informed Practice? An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Equity-Driven Student and Teacher Perspectives

Abstract

Background: The increasing awareness of trauma's profound impact on children has led to the adoption of trauma-informed educational practices (TIP), which aim to be informed about psychological trauma and its impacts and use that knowledge to transform schooling experiences (Venet, 2021). However, much of the recent surge in TIP focuses on “fixing” trauma that may have occurred outside of schools rather than attending to the policies, practices, and systems of oppression at school that cause trauma for children (Author, 2023; Kim & Venet, 2023; Goldin et al., 2021; Petrone & Stanton, 2021). This oversight is particularly problematic for Black youth, who are so frequently subjected to harm in schools (e.g., Saleem et al., 2022), and afforded fewer opportunities to have their perspectives be heard.

Methods: This study aims to center children’s experiences of trauma to explore the origins of trauma exposure for school-age Black elementary children, with the goal of advancing trauma-informed scholarship and practice. Drawing upon Critical Race Theory (e.g., Solorzano & Yosso, 2016; Crenshaw et al., 1995), I employed community-based participatory methods to partner with eleven elementary students (Mage=9.6) and their parents (N=11)-- all of whom identified as Black. Utilizing data from semi-structured interviews with both children and adults, as well as data from the bi-weekly participatory Student Advisory Board (N=4), I conducted narrative thematic analysis (Riessman, 2008). Coding descriptively then interpretively (Murray, 2009), I worked independently first and then in concert with the Student Advisory Board, to connect themes across the narratives to theoretical frameworks (Murray, 2009) and generate findings as well as narrative vignettes.

Results: Study participants elaborated two distinct pathways related to the origins of their traumatic experiences. First, a few parents and children (N=3) named trauma stemming from their homes and/or communities (e.g., traumatic grief). Importantly, when participants described experiencing trauma at home, they detailed how schools subsequently failed to respond in trauma-informed ways, thus exacerbating trauma responses (e.g., punishing emotional expression). However, the overwhelming majority named how schools were the first sites of trauma. Child participants reported– with their parents similarly describing– how their first instance of trauma was school-based trauma (e.g., bullying, racial trauma), where these children and their families were then forced to navigate the enduring trauma responses as a result.

Significance: Findings challenge the prevailing narrative of popularized TIP approaches, which often situate the origins of trauma, particularly for Black children, within families and communities. Instead, this study illuminates how trauma does not just happen at home– and that schools may be the first site of trauma for some children of color (Author, 2023; Venet, 2021). Thus, there is a critical need to expand TIP to acknowledge and address school-based trauma in addition to emphasizing its importance when responding to children with traumatic experiences. This expansion necessitates that educators and researchers look critically at the institutional factors that contribute to childhood trauma, and actively work to dismantle the structures of oppression that produce trauma in the first place.

Author

• Addison Duane, Sacramento State University