Blog

I will always remember the day that, as a student teacher, I watched as a student entered my second-grade room covered in blood. After quickly establishing that he was not injured, we learned that the blood was that of his brother who had been shot the night before. No parents were around that night, so this second grader became the sole caregiver of his bleeding brother. My student would never be the same. We didn’t care about grades or test scores. We just knew that this moment would...

There's a fantastic five-part series, Whole People , done by PBS, " spotlighting the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) through personal and community stories. It explores the long-term costs to personal well-being and our society. While much work needs to be done, there are many innovative developments to prevent and treat ACES. We all play a role in becoming a whole people." It's amazing. The five topics covered are as follows: Childhood Trauma Healing Communities A New...

There has been a lot of hand-wringing in the local press about the state of the Madison Metropolitan School District, particularly around behavior. In particular, the behavior education plan implemented over the last several years — intended to reduce exclusionary practices and use a more progressive approach to discipline — has come under fire for essentially allowing a permissive, low-consequence environment that affects learning as well as staff morale. I read these with interest — my two...

Early Bird Registration is open for our 3rd Annual Conference, Feb 16-18, 2020 in Atlanta, GA. https://creatingtraumasensitiveschools.org/conference/ The Call for Presentations remains open through Saturday, June 15, 2019. Submissions for workshops are accepted online only at this link: https://ww2.eventrebels.com/er/CFP/OnlineSubmissionEMailLogin.jsp?CFPID=1005&Submit=Reset

Use your words. It seems like such a friendly, gentle reminder. And it would make grown up lives so much easier if kids would just say what they want! Except what if they a) don’t know the right words or b) don’t know what they want? I walked up on an educator (let’s call them G) and a small child in the hallway. I could see the child had been crying, and was now stomping their feet and making sounds with their mouth, something like, “Uh uh uh uh uhhhh!” G, who was kneeling down on the...

RESPITE Conference: Building a Trauma-Informed Community Saturday, October 12, 2019 from 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM Granada Heights Friends Church – La Mirada 11818 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada, CA 90638 About the Conference: Learn more about the impacts of trauma through an informative and interactive day of training with education , resources , and tools that will equip you and your environment to serve the most vulnerable among us. The day will include main sessions, tailored breakouts, and...

I remain forever grateful that my long felt and seeming innate knowledge ( actually garnered from personal experience, work with traumatised animals and people ) has been evidenced and validated by the amazing work of Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda. They created the peg I, we, can hang our experience and expertise on and work to best apply our skills to assist others. With ACEs I am now able to communicate my knowledge with clients, colleagues and communities with the additional confidence...

My first year of college went by so fast. It’s hard to believe it’s already over. When I was in high school, it would have been harder to believe anyone who told me that I would be living my dream of attending college and having my own room on a gorgeous campus that feels like home. I was determined to go to college, but in high school my family situation threatened all my plans. After my father went to prison and my mother’s mental illness became more severe, I took responsibility for my...

School cafeterias are swapping dino-shaped chicken fingers for carrot purees. They’re trading mac ’n’ cheese for kale salsa and replacing potato chips with green smoothies. These lunchrooms are part of a pilot program that FoodCorps , a national nonprofit that promotes healthy foods in schools, launched in March in partnership with Sweetgreen, a fast-casual salad chain. The program, Reimagining School Cafeterias , advocates for the adoption of locally grown produce in schools and offers...

We’re pleased to announce that B.K. Bose of Niroga Institute has been selected to present at The Institute for Educational Leadership’s 2019 National Family and Community Engagement Conference in Reno, NV! This convening is a wonderful professional development and networking opportunity for state leaders, school and district leaders, administrators, educators, community-based organizations, researchers and families to come together and focus on solutions that enhance and expand engagement...

One of the most frustrating aspects of many school reforms efforts of the past several decades is the intense focus on test scores with far less attention, if any, on the personal experiences that students bring to the classroom and how those who have suffered chronic stress are affected. The rise of social-emotional learning in recent years has been seen as a move toward embracing the idea of dealing with the whole child in school, but many SEL programs don’t use trauma-informed...

Aaron Schaidle, BSN, RN is a new school nurse working in Indiana. He contacted me via Twitter to share his view of why we need a school nurse in every school. Aaron provides a compelling perspective on safe staffing, through his lens as a new school nurse. I appreciate Aaron adding his voice to this important discussion. The health and safety of our students and staff are at risk, why is this even a question in 2019? But, as we know it is...there is no shortage of school nurses willing to...