Being more trauma informed

As mental health awareness continues to become a more prominent discussion throughout the country, school districts are now implementing new curriculum requirements to address student needs. In Iowa, as part of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), new mandates are making sure schools across the state are taking steps to help students develop social, emotional, behavioral and mental health.

Teachers across the state and in local southeast Iowa school districts are participating in additional training to better understand the minds of students and to become more aware of how to work with children who may deal with trauma from outside of the classroom.

Educational professionals, starting at the beginning of this school year, were required to partake in two additional trainings. Online modules on suicide prevention and trauma informed care provide teachers with additional resources. Early prevention as well as using relationships and connections to help students were common themes in new programs that have been implemented in the Fairfield, Mt. Pleasant and Washington Community School districts.

The new mandate from the state, and the allocation of more funds to address student needs, has inspired many local schools to consider new activities that work specifically to help students regulate and be ready to learn.

At Fairfield Middle School, nine minutes every morning, dubbed as Trojan Time, is dedicated to making sure students have a great start to the day. Each student is recognized by name by and adult in the school and greeted in a positive and encouraging way. During Trojan Time, students are split into small groups of seven to nine students, a mix of fifth to eighth graders, lead by an adult in the building.

In the brief time, students answer a 'question of the day”, review their assignment journals and do a mind-set check to let their adult leader know how they're doing. If an adult notices a particularly low number from a student, which signifies a not-so-great start of the day, it allows the student to be checked in on personally before heading to class. The program involves not only teachers, but also administrators, cooks and custodians.

Fairfield Middle School's principal, Laura Atwood, explains that the program came about after several staff members from her building attended a conference in St. Charles, Missouri on trauma informed care that stressed the importance of helping students get regulated at the beginning of the school day.

'If they're not regulated … they're not in the mind-set to learn,” she said. The principal said that the school's goal is to create the best environment so that students are able to be the best students they can be, but that going to school and learning gets left 'on the back-burner” if students are dealing with situation outside of school that may make learning difficult to do.

Atwood noted that beyond helping students get regulated, Trojan Time is really about building relationships and helping students feel safe.

'If they have that connection with someone, they'll feel safe to confide in at least one person in the building to get help if they need it,” Atwood added.

'It's about building community … it's very intentional. The groups were created with students in mind … thinking about who they already have a connection with in the building.”

Atwood added that she has noticed a difference in mental health needs of students over the past ten years, which is the motivation behind the additional training and implementation of Trojan Time.

'Students sometimes can't tell the difference between social media and reality and feel a pressure to seem perfect, which can add a lot of stress,” Atwood said.

'We are asking more of teachers,” she continued. Teachers do not completely take on the role of guidance counselors but that they are expected to be more in tune with mental health needs because it has become such a prevalent factor in students' learning abilities.

Matt Jones, Fairfield Middle School's assistant principal, who leads his own Trojan Time group, says his students have reacted incredibly positively to the experience.

'They get to learn about each other and they get to learn a little about me,” Jones said.

Jones' group, comprised of all boys, have slowly become more chummy with each other as the school year has gone on. During their question of the day, which asked students whether they wanted to become parents one day, the boys each had an opportunity to share their thoughts.

'As it goes on, we want to let them take over some of the leadership parts of Trojan Time … it's important to help each student find the leader in themselves … it helps with confidence and grit when they may face adversity,” Jones said.

Jones makes sure to end each session with a high-five to each student as they walk about the door, wishing them a good and productive day.

Shawna Manz, a special-education teacher at Washington Middle School says the district-wide trainings that happened at the beginning of the year have been especially helpful because faculty and staff who work with kids everyday can be on the same page about how to help students and are now more often using the same language to discuss issues they may be seeing.

'From the bus drivers, nurses and care professionals, anyone who sees the kiddos throughout the day … we'll all have the same strategies to help students,” Manz said.

'It's great to get together as a district to see the larger pictures and really work together to help students,” she added.

Manz also noted that the trainings have helped teachers get more familiar with local resources available to students and families that can provide extra support if needed.

'It's about being proactive,” she further noted. Manz explained that at her school, teachers fill out assessments on high risk categories for each of their students, which are periodically reassessed.

'We don't want to let kids fly under the radar or slip through the cracks … with this new system, we can hopefully catch things early and keep an eye on any kids who would maybe have been missed before,” Manz said. At the Washington Middle School, it is truly a team effort. Grade level teachers meet every week along with guidance counselors and administrative members to discuss how students are doing in classrooms.

Other teachers in the district like Nicole Gish, a teacher with the Resilient Individualized Student Education (RISE) program at Lincoln Elementary School in Washington, reiterated that schools will be able to better support students who may have additional needs and that the teachers are realizing 'early intervention is key.”

'We're always looking to be proactive rather than reaction ... A lot of kids, before, would just get passed along through the grade-levels and then enter the community … we know that our students eventually become community members and we want to equip them with all the skills they need to be successful,” Gish said.

The RISE program, now in its third year, was created after the district realized there was a need to help younger students with behavior needs. The program has a specific wing in the school that leads directly to the parking lot.

'There can be a lot of stigma around mental health and so we wanted to create a safe space for students,” Gish noted.

'Lines are absolutely a little blurred between counselors, teachers. There's a lot more responsibilities shared now,” Gish said about the shift in the role of teachers to provide preventive and mental health care.

'We're always looking into how to build relationships from day one, which is really the way to get students to feel safe and able to learn,” the teacher said.

Many southeast Iowa school districts saw the need for more mental health resources before the state-mandated legislation that came about last year. Katie Gavin, the director of instruction at Mt. Pleasant Community School District, said the district had already 'started down the journey” of providing more resources to students because of student mental health and behavior concerns. With the new component under ESSA, the district is further held accountable to relay to the state how they're staying sensitive to needs and helping children through adverse experiences or trauma.

Across the Washington, Fairfield and Mt. Pleasant school districts, the Positive Behavior Intervention and Support system is used to analyze data like attendance and office referrals, to determine how to best support struggling students. Gavin noted that the data has helped teachers consider new strategies to help students as well as reset their minds about why students exhibit behaviors.

'We've learned that if students can do something, they will. So when they're not doing something, it's because they don't have that skill and so our job is to help them figure out what that skill and to teach them,” Gavin said.

Gavin noted that teachers have done multiple book studies that have helped them better understand students who may come from trauma that have also inspired new activities in schools.

A new program at the Mt. Pleasant Middle School, in which students spend 90 minutes every Friday before school lets out to attend a club activity of their choice reinforces a positive attitude about school. Students sign up to participate in clubs that focused on a host of different topics and activities including sports, animals, agriculture, social media, community service or board games. The program began last spring.

'Since they've started doing clubs, their office referrals have gone down 50 percent,” Gavin noted.

The middle school dropped from over 400 office referrals to a number in the low 200s within a year of implementing clubs.

'They had to completely redo their schedule but they felt it was important,” she said.

However, the director of instruction noted that teachers saw the importance of meeting the needs of students.

'We want to make sure our teachers are taken care of too because when they are working with students who have dealt with trauma, it can be traumatic for them as well,” Gavin said.

'Our teachers have been so great and involved with learning about trauma informed care … they're been really excited about understanding how to help students,” Gavin concluded.