What Is This Section About?
This section provides tools to reflect on each site’s current trauma-engaged work and tools to identify key priorities for trauma-engaged schools.
Schools can craft a plan that allows school staff, families, and key partners to be part of the transformation and adopt trauma engaged philosophies. This process can help generate buy-in and develop consistent language and practices throughout the school and community. The plan can be a useful tool for monitoring progress and changes within your school.
Community Adaptations
Each community and school may have existing norms around planning and implementation. Consider the tools below in thinking about how to adapt data review, planning, or dialogue processes for your community and school norms. Community may mean organization leaders, Elders, family representatives, tribal leaders, business representatives, or others.
This chapter is about putting a plan together so that partners can transform their schools. This chapter can also help teams to monitor progress and make improvements. In order to be successful at developing a comprehensive plan, partners need an understanding of the components of transforming schools. We recommend that you read through other sections and include them in your plan. Co-creation is recommended for ensuring culturally relevant and collaborative plan design.
"In the past I think I have gotten it backwards. When we do this right, the community and school come up with a plan that includes our students, families, leaders, and school personnel. Then the road is clear and we all know what we can do to go along this road together."
– Alaska Principal
Trauma Engaged Schools Knowing to Doing Video Library
The Trauma Engaged Video Library offers over 50 peer-led and statewide experts short videos tied to the topics in the Framework. They are under 10 minutes and easily accessible for personal review or in a group setting to stimulate discussion. Below is the video series for this chapter.
What Can Leadership Do?
A. Develop clear message and conversation tools to gauge awareness and readiness for Transforming Schools work.
- Communication Tools
Offers questions and considerations for sharing your message on trauma-engaged schools. - Committing to an emotionally, physically, culturally, and academically safe environment.
- Video from Treatment and Services Adaptation Center
Josh Kaufman talking Trauma Engaged Schools
- Communication Tools
B. Build a representative Trauma Engaged Team to prepare for school-wide and district-wide efforts.
- Getting a Trauma Engaged Team Started
Provides an overview and steps that administrators or trauma-engaged champions take to organize a strong Trauma Engaged Team. - SEL Champion Job Description
An example job description for a coordinator or champion to move the work forward in a district. - Assembling an SEL Team
This is a resource designed by the Collaborative for Academic and Social and Emotional Learning on assembling an SEL team. - The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work
- Getting a Trauma Engaged Team Started
C. Maintain and monitor progress with the Trauma Engaged Team. This includes knowing to doing or accountability structures.
- Milestones and Maintaining Momentum
This tool outlines milestones to work toward during the first years of your Transforming Schools work. Trauma Engaged Teams can use this to review quarterly or annual progress. - Example from Conscious Discipline: Administrator Rubric for performance measures
- Transforming Schools Framework: Building a Leadership Team
Each section of this toolkit has assessments or checklists to monitor progress.
- Milestones and Maintaining Momentum
D. Support and promote the Trauma Engaged Team’s trauma-engaged schools plan. Seek input from community, school staff, and community. Gather resources and networking opportunities that support trauma-engaged teams.
- Plan Template
One sample template is provided to document the shared vision, theory of change, key actions, and responsibilities for your Trauma-Engaged Plan. - Example Plans and Overviews
- Plan Template
What Can Staff Do?
A. Ensure representation of broad stakeholders on the Trauma Engaged Team.
- How to Shape a Trauma Engaged Team
- Tools for talking about trauma and how to get others involved. Work with other school staff, families, and administrators to shift mindsets and norms to support Trauma-Engaged schools to get others involved.
- Leading Trauma-Sensitive Schools Action Guide
B. Contribute to school-wide plans for Transforming Schools including specific strategies for professional learning, skill instruction, school-wide practices, self-care, etc.
- Plan Template
One example template is provided to document your shared vision, theory of change, key actions, and responsibilities for your Trauma-Engaged Plan. - Data Reflection Tool
Provides suggestions of data to review and questions to reflect on to better understand your school, students, and community. This can help prioritize needs and focus your Transforming Schools Plan.
- Plan Template
C. Use a shared language to help promote understanding of trauma and whole-school social and emotional practices.
D. Tailor trauma-engaged school goals into school-wide and classroom practices for students and families in ways that are culturally responsive.
- Embedded Culturally Responsive
- CASEL resource identifying standards, to learning goals
- School-wide learning goals to classroom processes and lessons
- Milestones and Maintaining Momentum
Review the assessments from skill instruction, school wide practices, and other sections to identify which practices you have adopted check out skill-instruction and school-wide practices sections
What can your Planning and Progress Monitoring team do?
A. Build trust, cultivate relationships, and focus on common purpose.
- Facilitation Strategies
Provides ideas for meeting facilitation. Effective facilitators use common strategies for ensuring that all voices are shared, heard, and incorporated into the plan. Some tips are provided here. (4g) - Check out this video from Association of Alaska School Boards Timi Tullis offering facilitation techniques and tips
- The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work
Resource on Building Trust. See more in chapter 2: relationship building. - Agenda Items for the Trauma Engaged Team
Provides an overview of topics for Trauma Engaged Teams and some sample agendas to help the Trauma Engaged Team achieve desired outcomes of meetings. (4f) - Transforming School Toolkit: Conversation Prompts
These resources help to get broad stakeholder input from school staff, students, and families. Another way to understand Trauma-Engaged Schools is through dialogues or focused conversations. These conversation prompts provide relevant questions and topics for consideration. - First Alaskans Institute Host Training
- Facilitation Strategies
B. Inform planning and progress by utilizing data and local knowledge.
- Data Reflection Tools
These tools provide suggestions for data review and reflection questions to better understand your school, students, and community. This can help prioritize needs or focus areas for your Transforming Schools Plan. (4b)
- Data Reflection Tools
C. Follow processes to develop and carry out a school-wide plan.
- Getting a Trauma Engaged Team Started
Provides an overview and steps administrators or trauma-engaged champions take to organize a strong Trauma Engaged Team. (4e) - Assembling an SEL Team
Designed by the Collaborative for Academic and Social and Emotional Learning on assembling an SEL team. - Responsibilities and Duties of Champions
Provides ideas for designating or clarifying responsibilities for the Trauma Engaged Team organizer. - Milestones and Maintaining Momentum
Outlines milestones to work toward during the first years of your Transforming Schools work. Trauma Engaged Teams can use this to review quarterly or annual progress. (4h) - Example from Conscious Discipline
- A synopsis and worksheet of plan, do, study act – a quality improvement tool
- Getting a Trauma Engaged Team Started
D. Put the Trauma Engaged Team’s trauma-engaged schools plan and seek input from community and school staff that are representative of your school community.
- Plan Template
One sample template is provided to document your shared vision, theory of change, key actions, and responsibilities for your Trauma-Engaged Plan. attachment (4d) - Plan-Do-Study-Act Template
- Trauma-Sensitive Schools Worksheets (National Center on Safe and Supportive Learning)
- Measuring Progress of Trauma-Informed Schools (SAMHSA)
- Plan Template
E. Establish common language, standards, and practices.
- Common language and milestones
- Customize steps to fit your community’s needs and style, following the broad principles of collaboration, intentionality, and discussion. This example includes broad goal areas of the Lower Yukon School District.
More Info
What can your School Board do?
- 10 Ways to Build Relationships With Students This Year
Resources for supporting adults in building positive relationships with students grades K-8 - Strategies for Teachers to Develop Positive Relationships With Students
A site with ideas and video resources for connecting with students - 8 Quick Relationship Building Activities
- 32 Tips for building better relationships with Students
- 10 Ways to Build Relationships With Students This Year
Additional Resources
- There are skilled facilitators and hosts across the state who are available to help your district. Please contact AASB if you would like a suggestion.
- One example included: Institute for Cultural Affairs
Checklist and Assessment
Milestone Guide
The Transforming Schools Guide offers some steps and a starting point to deepen personal growth, establish a common vision with colleagues and community, and remind each of us that this is a process of preparing, starting, applying, and refining our trauma engaged work. Individuals and teams move through the steps and cycle many times to continue to improve upon and deepen our trauma engaged approach. Seeing the path forward and celebrating successes are key components of effective implementation. These Milestone guides offer four levels of section to complete, broken out by role. Each of the 11 components within the framework and toolkit.