Supporting child survivors of trauma at school: depathologizing behaviour and educating teachers

Abstract

Childhood trauma is a substantial concern in our education system in Ontario, as it has been noted that approximately 32% (Afifi et al., 2014) to 36% (Findlay & Sutherland, 2014) of Canadian adults report that they were exposed to abuse as children. Trauma can have significant impact on a child’s learning (Vasilevski & Tucker, 2016), behaviour (Greeson et al., 2014), and wellness (Roberts, Ferguson, & Crusto, 2013), and puts them at an increased risk of being retraumatized or further punished in schools due to the Western education system relying on the behavioural model (Costa, 2017). A 450-hour social work practicum was completed with the Mental Health Team at the Sudbury Catholic District School Board (SCDSB) as a partial requirement of the Laurentian University MSW program. This practicum project report employs structural and anti-oppressive social work perspectives and a trauma theory lens to undergo an exploration into: (a) what trauma-informed practices (TIPs) and primary models are used by the SCDSB to inform their practice in supporting students who have been exposed to trauma, (b) to what extent school-based social work in this setting reflects certain models that function to further harm child survivors of trauma, such as the behavioural model, and its relationship to understanding student experiences through the lens of trauma, and (c) how trauma theory can be used to establish alternatives to pathologization in regards to children within schools who have experienced trauma. Trauma-informed professional development lunch-and-learns were presented to teaching staff in four schools as the intervention provided during this practicum