Toolkit Overview
This toolkit was created by the Arkansas Trauma Resource Initiative for Schools (TRIS) to support the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) STOP School Violence Prevention and Mental Health Training Grant.
Acknowledgements
TRIS is a collaboration between the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), the ADE, and other interested parties. The TRIS team at UAMS is made up of experts in childhood trauma. If a natural disaster, suicide, suicide attempt, death, act of violence, or any other traumatic event impacts your school, TRIS can help you navigate the difficult time that follows. This is done through personalized consultation tailored to your school’s or district’s unique circumstances. TRIS also provides trainings for school personnel on trauma-informed practices, works with school leaders to foster trauma-informed schools, and partners with UAMS’ AR-Connect program to link students, families, and staff to mental health services when needed following a crisis. Information about TRIS and their services can be found on our website.
How can TRIS Help?
While TRIS remains available to walk alongside you should the unthinkable happen, proactive consideration of the steps your school/district takes in the wake of a tragedy is quite useful. This toolkit equips school- and district-leaders with helpful information to consider when doing that. It does not replace TRIS’ individualized services. Rather, this toolkit helps guide forward thinking about planned steps should the devastating ‘what ifs’ occur.
If a difficult event impacts your school or district, we sincerely hope that your reach out to TRIS as one of your very first steps. Nobody should have to carry the weight of a crisis alone. We also encourage you to promptly review your school’s/district’s crisis plan and related policies. Although the information in this toolkit may help you think through certain aspects of crisis response plans, it does not direct the formulation of operational plans, preparedness practices (e.g., drills), or related policies. School Guide | Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Technical Assistance Center is one example of a reputable resource, should you desire assistance with that.
Using This Toolkit
This toolkit is written in a manner that facilitates both a continuous reading approach and an asynchronous review. Content is interconnected and links to resources and more in-depth information are available. You may choose to skip around, to read the entire toolkit at surface level and then click on links to explore resources and in-depth information, or some combined approach. You should feel comfortable exploring the content in whatever manner suits you.
Regardless of how you choose to access information, you will notice that TRIS’ availability for customized consultation following a school crisis is mentioned throughout the toolkit. This is intentional. It was done to ensure that if an individual chose to only access a portion of the toolkit, they were aware of additional supports available in Arkansas. We want every school and every district in the state of Arkansas to know that they do not have to navigate the aftermath of a crisis alone.
TRIS is available to walk alongside them, to help inform their response, to provide individualized and tailored resources, and to support them as they support others. (For individualized supports specifically tailored to the unique circumstances of a school/district following a crisis, you are encouraged to reach out to the ADE Guidance and School Counseling Team to request a TRIS consult. Also, the creation of an easy to navigate resource that is all-encompassing yet individualized to a particular situation and highly personalized to a specific school community is fraught with logistical and pragmatic barriers.
In subsequent sections of this toolkit, you will find general information trauma, crisis management, time-based considerations, and select, high-quality resources. Again, this guide may help inform or supplement district- and school-specific crisis response plans and policies—yet it does not replace them.
The word trauma is heard more and more frequently these days, and it can mean different things to different people. Experts commonly talk about three key factors when discussing a trauma: the event itself, the experiences of an individual during and after the event, and the effects that follow.
Trauma and Crises
The Event
This is the specific potentially difficult incident or situation. It can be one event or a series of repeated events. The impact of the event can vary widely. People within your school may react differently to similar situations. Throughout this toolkit, the occurrence of the difficult event is the crisis.
The Experience
This includes someone’s reactions that occur during and after the event. It includes the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations linked to the event. How somebody experiences an event is subjective and unique to them. What is traumatic for one student or staff member might not be for another.
The Effect
This is how the event influences someone’s overall wellbeing and functioning. The effect of an event can vary widely from person to person. Following a crisis, some students and/or staff members may need more intensive an individualized support services than others. If a student or staff member is really struggling following a difficult event, they may benefit from speaking with a counselor to determine whether therapy services might be helpful.
Throughout this toolkit, when we say trauma, we are referring to an emotional or psychological reaction to an overwhelmingly difficult event. The difficult event is the crisis that affects your school. This might be a natural disaster, an accident, violence, death, a serious illness or injury of someone in the school community, or any other even that is particularly difficult to your school community.
A thoughtful, supportive, and thorough response following a school crisis helps build resiliency among students and staff, supports mental health, and identifies those in need of additional supports.
Trauma-Informed Management of Your School’s/District’s Response to a Difficult Event
A trauma-informed response promotes physical safety, psychological wellbeing, and emotional security of all. It promotes coping and adjustment, fosters resilience, and helps you identify and facilitate additional supports for those in need. This type of response appreciates that difficult events are experienced differently by individuals and that many factors—including factors beyond our control—contribute to the effect a difficult event has on a person. Use of a trauma-informed approach requires you to consider how the event impacts students and staff—both as a whole and as individuals. When you use this type of an approach, you recognize that changes in a person’s behavior, emotions, interactions, and/or academic functioning could be related to the difficult event. When you notice these changes, consider them within the context of the difficult event. These changes may indicate that someone needs additional, individualized support services. Following are some general trauma-informed guidelines to follow in the wake of a difficult event:
While your first step is to ensure physical safety, you should address any immediate emotional needs promptly after the physical environment’s safety is secured.
Remember that children and teens will have different emotional experiences.
Misbehavior, change in behavior or change in academic performance may indicate a student is having difficulty managing their feelings.
Prioritize Physical and Emotional Safety
Be Truthful and Transparent
Be open and honest with students, staff, and families about what is happening (or has happened) and what will happen next. Open communication promotes trust.
Have conversations with students in homeroom or a familiar classroom.
AVOID bringing large groups students together for the purpose of communicating about the event or for processing feelings!
Maintain routines as much as possible. This often helps students and staff feel safe and secure. Also, when you are consistent and predictable it contributes to trusting relationships—both with staff and with students and families.
Keep to routines as much as possible.
Be Consistent and Predictable
When a difficult event occurs, people often feel a loss of control. Doing things like letting them choose where to sit, when they take a break, or how they express feelings can help them feel more in control and empowered.
Provide the opportunity for students (and staff) to make individual choices when able to do so.
Allow Individual Choices
Use active listening and acknowledge expressed or observed emotions without adding judgments, offering solutions, minimizing or being dismissing. Try to listen to understand as you empathetically validate feelings. Remind students, staff, and yourself that it is okay for someone to feel whatever they feel. Validating feelings helps students and staff feel supported, connected, and like they (and their feelings) matter. As a result, it can help reduce feelings of isolation.
Provide a way for students to ask questions or express feelings.
While some students benefit from talking about the event repeatedly, repetitively hearing about an event may be distressing to others. Redirect conversations to counselor as needed.
Validate Feelings
It can be difficult for students and staff to feel calm and regulated following a difficult event. Yet, we know that when calmness is modeled following a difficult event it helps people regulate and feel more in control. Staff are encouraged to try model calmness. They can also verbalize self-regulation strategies they use (e.g., “I can feel my heart beating quickly, so I am going to close my eyes and take a few deep breaths.” “My mind knows we are safe; I need my body to feel that safe, calm feeling. This is how I do that.”).
Model calmness and self-regulation to help students feel and become more regulated following a difficult event.
Co-Regulate and Model Calmness
Students also can be directly taught strategies to help them manage their emotional reactions. For example, you might consider explicit teaching of deep breathing or mindfulness exercises. Check out UAMS’ AR ConnectNow Build Skills for Mental Health page for a variety of strategies that promote coping, help with regulation, build resilience, and foster strong mental health.
Use of coping skills helps facilitate adjustment.
Teach and Promote Coping Skills
Recognize Strengths
When a difficult event occurs, people often feel a loss of control. Doing things like letting them choose where to sit, when they take a break, or how they express feelings can help them feel more in control and empowered.
Provide the opportunity for students (and staff) to make individual choices when able to do so.
When a difficult event occurs, people often feel a loss of control. Doing things like letting them choose where to sit, when they take a break, or how they express feelings can help them feel more in control and empowered.
Provide the opportunity for students (and staff) to make individual choices when able to do so.
Consider Differences
Students also can be directly taught strategies to help them manage their emotional reactions. For example, you might consider explicit teaching of deep breathing or mindfulness exercises. Check out UAMS’ AR ConnectNow Build Skills for Mental Health page for a variety of strategies that promote coping, help with regulation, build resilience, and foster strong mental health.
Use of coping skills helps facilitate adjustment.
Connection and Relationships
Students also can be directly taught strategies to help them manage their emotional reactions. For example, you might consider explicit teaching of deep breathing or mindfulness exercises. Check out UAMS’ AR ConnectNow Build Skills for Mental Health page for a variety of strategies that promote coping, help with regulation, build resilience, and foster strong mental health.
Use of coping skills helps facilitate adjustment.
Trauma-Informed Trainings
For More Information
