Trauma-Responsive Approach

Trauma-Responsive Approach

While the trauma-informed approach may be connected to awareness, the trauma-responsive approach can be connected to the idea of growth. Trauma-informed teaching approaches were developed from the awareness that everyone may be affected by ACEs. Building from that, trauma-responsive teaching seeks to support all students who may have experienced trauma while also preventing students and educators from experiencing additional stressors that may inhibit learning. Trauma-responsive pedagogy seeks to transform learning experiences. Students are encouraged to "turn their wounds into wisdom", and educators are encouraged to see beyond students' challenges and focus on their ability to grow beyond them. (Casimir & Baker, 2023).

 

Key Elements of the Trauma-Responsive Approach

Just as scholars have identified key principles for the trauma-informed approach, there are also key elements of the trauma-responsive approach. Trauma-responsive educators:

  • Provide students support so they may achieve emotional connection, regulation, and fluency
  • Guide students to develop
    • the ability to connect, create, and maintain relationships
    • self-awareness
    • impulse control

As mentioned previously, the trauma-responsive approach is focused on growth, in particular, the concept of post-traumatic growth, which we will explore after taking a look at a few trauma-responsive pedagogical choices.

 

Trauma-Responsive Pedagogy

Trauma-responsive pedagogy focuses on activities and teaching choices that move students towards growth beyond their trauma. These practices may include:

  • Emotional awareness and regulation
  • Movement/grounding activities such as tapping, chair yoga, breathing exercises, doodling, drawing, or typing
    • Educators are strongly encouraged to consider their own comfort level when choosing movement or grounding activities.
  • Creativity
    • As Daniels, 2022, notes, "Even if you do not have much time, giving students time for creative activity whenever possible can help them find their place of internal calm, preparing them for learning" (115).
  • Small goals

 

Post-Traumatic Growth

Consider this image of a damaged ceramic pot that has been restored through the Japanese practice of kintsugi:

a blue ceramic bowl mended with gold in the Japanese kintsugi style

In kintsugi, broken ceramics are mended by applying layers of lacquer and gold or silver powder. Post-traumatic growth can be likened to this practice in the sense that growth and development after trauma are possible, and "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" (Palanac, 2023). While it would not be wise to express this sentiment to students who have endured traumatic experiences, it may give educators insight into students' ability to heal, grow, and develop beyond their trauma.

Educators can promote post-traumatic growth by incorporating specific topics such as:

  • Personal development
  • Positive mental health
  • Setting goals
  • Building community (Palanac, 2023)

Additionally, we can foster this type of growth by demonstrating a growth mindset:

  • Promote self-efficacy among students
  • Reframe failures
  • Show role models through whom students can have a positive vicarious experience

We can also accomplish this by encouraging social support through pair and group activities or by building whole class rapport. Finally, we can encourage post-traumatic growth by connecting students to meaningful activities such as reflective writing, providing them language to talk about themselves and experiences, and offering unique activities such as ideal L2 (second language) self. In this activity, students are asked to imagine themselves currently as their ideal second language self using the present tense. They are encouraged to make a list or describe their abilities or their accomplishments in their second language. It is important to note that for both the ideal self activity and reflective writing, we want to steer away from rehashing past traumas or introducing these activities to newly-arrived students for whom trauma may be relatively fresh. We will explore these and other limitations in the page, Limitations & Warnings, later in this module.

 

More on Growth

For additional insight on how to move your class and activities towards PTG (post-traumatic growth), consider viewing this talk by Dr. Brené Brown. In this presentation, Brown discusses ideas of courage and vulnerability, which are essential for maintaining a growth-oriented approach to learning and teaching.