About This Lesson
All educators desire for their students to be happy, healthy, and prepared to reach their highest potential. These aspirations are most often possible when children have environments that provide safety, support, love, and nurturing. Unfortunately, this is far from reality for almost half of the children in the United States – about 35 million – who have experienced one or more types of trauma.
Educators may notice unhealthy or concerning student behaviors in the children they serve. Understanding the source of this behavior, recognizing that this behavior may be symptomatic of trauma, and then knowing how to support student learning when trauma is a factor, is far less obvious.
This toolkit, created by First Book and funded by the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA), is designed to provide an overview of the causes and symptoms of trauma, offer insight on frequently asked questions, and provide actionable steps educators and caring adults can take to support student learning and development.
In this toolkit, educators will:
> Learn about the most common sources of childhood trauma
> Learn how trauma affects learning, and how it manifests in students
> Receive tools and techniques to help students manage their social & emotional behavior
> Learn how to gain additional support from your community and student caregivers
> Learn about the importance of self-care, and how to handle compassion fatigue
This reference tool for educators was also designed to work in conjunction with First Book’s Healthy Feelings and Relationships collections of books and free reading guides. Available through the First Book Marketplace (https://www.fbmarketplace.org/healthy-feelings-relationships/) ,these reading guides help educators teach social and emotional learning to Pre-K – 7th graders using picture books and graphic novel.
Interested in the Trauma Toolkit! Click below to explore more of First Book's free resources!
