Pandemic Pain Points: How Trauma-Informed Practices Extend Holistic Support and Expand Opportunity

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: K–12 Stress and Coping During COVID-19

Abstract

Though the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the education of all students worldwide, opportunity gaps that already existed only widened. Conducted at a school serving economically-challenged students, this qualitative study examined the challenges families faced during the pandemic as well as ways in which the focal school took a Trauma-Informed Approach (TIA) to support them. Content analysis revealed physical, academic, and social-emotional challenges related to accessing learning, developmentally-unfriendly pedagogy, and lack of socialization. Taking a TIA that cultivates relationships, shared agency, structure, self-regulation, and social-emotional learning, the focal school took steps to reduce isolation, cultivate connectedness, and strengthen resilience. Implications for embracing a TIA in order to address unfinished learning, reactivate student engagement, build community, and promote recovery are discussed.

Author

• Carrie R Wall, Pepperdine University