Applying Trauma-Sensitive Practices in School Counseling

Interventions for Achieving Change

Stacey Rawson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000172270
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Applying Trauma-Sensitive Practices in School Counseling provides school counselors with the research, knowledge, and skills they need to implement interventions that will impact the academic, social, and emotional outcomes of traumatized students. This guidebook is for school counselors, especially those who work with students with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Readers will obtain background information about ACEs and the effects of chronic stress in childhood, trauma-informed programs for school counselors to lead school-wide, and tools and strategies for school counselors to implement in personal practice.

1   Introduction

When I pull into the parking lot of my school each morning, my mind begins to whirl. Thoughts race in about to-do lists, student check-ins, administrative meetings, small group curriculum, parent follow-up, classroom lessons to plan, and how I might fit lunch in between recess duty and an IEP meeting. If you are a school counselor too, you know these thoughts all too well. The common push and pull between large caseloads and profound need. We get swept up in the crisis of the day and forget the bigger picture of my comprehensive counseling program. Between a panic attack in math class, bullying behaviors at recess, and the student who eloped from English class, we are triaging symptoms and not truly solving problems.

Our students need more than the occasional check-in, or quick solution to a peer conflict. Often, the roots of these momentary crises lie deeper than a hard math test, an insulting phrase, or forgotten English homework. When 64% of children suffer at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) before their 18th birthday, and one in five is diagnosed with a mental, emotional, or behavioral health disorder, we know that we must keep digging for answers below the surface-level behaviors (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019; Felitti et al., 1998). If we aren’t merely reacting to crisis after crisis, what else can we do? Where do we start? How do we help? And most pressing on our minds – how do we fit it all into our school day?

My hope is that this book illuminates a path for you. A path toward trauma-sensitivity. A path toward strategic planning. A path toward collaborative care. A path toward increasing our awareness of childhood trauma and developing caring schools where our students who have experienced trauma thrive alongside peers.

We start by looking deeper and asking ourselves “Why?”

Once we know the “why” behind the behaviors and emotions of our students, when can we begin the process of “what now?” In this book, we will answer both “why” and “what now.” Through knowledge about ACEs and the effects of childhood trauma, coupled with the application of evidenced-based school counseling interventions, we can journey ahead with our students toward a healthy future.

Structure of the Book

This book comprises 12 chapters divided into three “steps.” It is intended to be read at least once all the way through to understand what trauma is, how it affects students, and what can be done to improve its adverse effects. Each “Step” is a crucial part of the journey toward becoming a trauma-sensitive school counselor, beginning with awareness and ending with implementation of trauma-sensitive interventions. After reading the book once through, Step 3 (Chapters 9–11) can serve as a reference it itself. School counselors can use Step 3 to research a variety of trauma-sensitive, school counseling interventions, or to choose specific strategies from the bank of interventions provided.

Step 1: Understand the Impact of Childhood Trauma on Student Learning and Child Development lays the foundation for the book by describing ACEs and the development of the ACEs concept. After describing ACEs and the original ACE research study in Chapter 2, Step 1 goes on to describe how ACEs affect the students we work with each day. Chapter 3 navigates through the structures of the brain and portrays how each structure impacts learning and school success. Chapter 4 describes common symptoms of ACE exposure and their commonalities with mental illnesses and behavioral diagnoses. Chapter 5 introduces the role of school counselors in raising awareness about ACEs and childhood trauma at our schools.

Step 2: Develop Trauma-Sensitivity Schoolwide: Support ALL Students to Reach those with ACEs explains the philosophy of trauma-sensitivity and identifies schoolwide practices that support this philosophy. Using research, theory, and examples, Chapter 6 illustrates a framework for trauma-sensitive schools, and Chapter 7 brings it to life through schoolwide programs, including Social-Emotional Learning, Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, Restorative Practices, and Response to Intervention.

Finally, in Step 3, Implement School Counseling Strategies to Support Students with ACEs: The TSC Model, the science of Step 1 and theory of Step 2 are brought together into strategies for practice. The TSC model is a three-part practice model for school counselors who are committed to trauma-sensitivity in their daily work. The three practice areas – Tiered Interventions, Self-Regulation, and Connecting to School (TSC) – comprise 52 different trauma-sensitive interventions. The interventions can be used individually or collectively to benefit traumatized students. Chapter 8 shares the research informing the TSC model, while Chapters 9–11 highlight the resource bank of interventions.

Case Studies from the Field

Throughout this book, there are more than 40 “case studies” of children who have experienced ACEs. These stories were collected from educators across the country. As I compiled these stories of children, their families, and their educators, I became even more aware of the universal nature of trauma. The common themes of adversity and subsequent educational challenges are present, no matter the school, neighborhood, city, or state where a student grows up. ACEs are everywhere. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, a leading researcher and California state Surgeon General, commonly refers to ACEs as a public health epidemic. I couldn’t agree more. This epidemic affects almost 2/3 of American adults and its negative effects on the next generation are felt every day in our schools (Harris, 2018).

The case studies help bring this book to life. By incorporating the research with real-life examples, I hope it is clear how ACEs and the biological underpinnings of adversity affect the lives of students on a daily basis. This book is not simply theory, research, or wishful thinking. It is grounded in both science and practice, in what can work and what has worked. It gives YOU – the school counselor – strategies, knowledge, and examples to use on your path toward trauma-sensitivity.

While the stories included are all true stories collected from counselors, teachers, and administrators, all names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the children and families discussed in the story. I would like to thank the real-life students, families, and educators portrayed in this book for allowing me to use these stories. Your stories bring heightened awareness to the universality of ACEs. Thank you for allowing me to share your examples to help other students, families, and educators just like you. I recognize that many of the personal life experiences described in this book are different than my own. My goal is to treat each story with the dignity, empathy, and kindness it deserves. Ultimately, sharing these stories, along with theory and interventions, will increase trauma-sensitive school counseling practices in schools across the country.

References

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019, July 19). Improving Access to Children’s Mental Healthcare. Retrieved from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/access.html
2. Felitti, V., Anda, R., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D., Spitz, A., Edwards, V., … Marks, J. (1998). Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults: The Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventative Medicine, 14(4), 245–258. Retrieved from www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(98)00017-8/pdf
3. Harris, N. B. (2018). The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Step 1
Understand the Impact of Childhood Trauma on Student Learning and Child Development

2 The ACEs Study

Lasting Effects from Childhood Trauma

Learning from the Past: What Are ACEs?

It was 1985. In San Diego, California, Dr. Vincent Felitti studied obesity at Kaiser Permanente. Patient after patient successfully lost weight through his research program, and a few never found success. Neither of these outcomes surprised Dr. Fetitti. Occasionally though, a surprising patient did come along. These surprising patients did find success with weight-loss, but then oddly reversed course. These were the patients who peaked Dr. Felitti’s interest. Why, at the very moment someone overcame a life-long struggle with their weight, would they reverse course and gain it all back – plus more? Through his patient interviews, he found an important connection from one “surprising patient” to another. Seemingly unrelated to obesity, yet strangely connected from patient to patient, was a history of childhood adversity – abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction (Harris, 2018).

In 1990, Dr. Felitti met a physician epidemiologist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Robert Anda. Together, they embarked on the largest and most comprehensive study ever done about the connection between childhood adversity, adult health-risk behavior (such as smoking, binge drinking, unprotected sexual encounters, and drug use), and chronic disease. Between 1995 and 1997, a staggering 17,421 Kaiser patients participated in this study, where they completed a questionnaire about childhood abuse and exposure to household dysfunction. Additionally, questions were asked about their current health and health-risk behaviors in order to draw connections.

After compiling and analyzing the data, Dr. Felitti and Dr. Anda termed the stressful or traumatic events that people experience early in life as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) (Felitti et al., 1998). One aim of the study was to determine each patient’s level of exposure to ACEs, later called the ACE score, by the age of 18 (Harris, 2018). Through analyzing the research, ten categories of ACEs emerged. These ten categories became their scoring method. An ACE score can be as low as 0, meaning no adversity was experienced in childhood, and as high as 10 – meaning a child experienced all ten of the ACE categories before age 18. To learn your own ACE score, a 10-question quiz, called the ACE Questionnaire, is available in Appendix A (ACEs too High, 2012) (Figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1 Research from the original ACE study was groundbreaking, yet ignored for many years (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2013).

The ten ACE categories are now defined by the CDC. They are defined as follows:

• 1 Psychological (Emotional) Abuse: A parent/guardian living in the home put the child down, insulted them, swore at them, or made them fearful that they may be hurt.
• 2 Physical Abuse: A parent/guardian living in the home threw something at the child, hit them leavin...