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After the 2016 wildfire, school counsellors in Fort McMurray employed trauma-informed practices to help students and teacher colleagues.
This involved fostering a sense of safety among students and colleagues, and encouraging them to discuss their individual experiences with the fire.
Natalie Doucette and other counsellors recognized that school was a place to create routine for kids and make them feel safe, and that their needs would be high for up to five years after the event. Teachers were trained to look for signs of mental health struggles in children.
“Children aren’t going to sit in a chair and have a nice conversation about the impact a trauma has [had] on them. It’s the changes in behaviour we’ll notice,” Doucette said.
Other measures taken after the fire included bringing a mental health therapist into every school so kids could get counseling as needed without leaving school. Schools also hosted programs like yoga, cognitive behaviour training, psychological first aid and HeartMath, a science-based program to help reduce stress and anxiety.
For the first school year, traditional teaching took a back seat to dealing with trauma, based on evidence that shows distress from trauma
impedes learning.
“We forgot about reading and writing. If you don’t have healthy children and healthy teachers, you’re not going to get any learning,” said Shannon Noble, assistant superintendent for Fort McMurray Public Schools.
Doucette added that teachers who’ve experienced trauma alongside their students can help these students when they acknowledge that their own recovery isn’t easy.
“Being open to days that are hard allows your students to learn that it’s ok to not be ok.”
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Five guiding principles for trauma-informed practices:
-
safety
- choice
- collaboration
- trustworthiness
- empowerment
Ensuring that the physical and emotional safety of an individual is addressed is the first step to providing trauma-informed care.
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Reference
Buffalo Centre for Social Research. 2020. “What is Trauma-Informed Care?” Buffalo Centre for Social Research website. http://socialwork.buffalo.edu/social-research/institutes-centers/institute-on-trauma-and-trauma-informed-care/what-is-trauma-informed-care.html (accessed on March 19, 2020).
Positive outlook
“People can have positive outcomes after
trauma. They don’t lose their trauma, but they
grow into learning to live with it, accept it and move forward to embrace new pathways,
which they never would have, had they
not had that trauma.”
— Mary Frances Fitzgerald, long-time counsellor and current education consultant
for diversity and mental health with Edmonton Public Schools
