Karla B. Horton · 2019 · International Journal of School Social Work · Open access
This article reviews research about the effects of traumatic events on the functioning of children and adolescents in a school setting. Interventions with traumatic stressors have been shown to work best when they incorporate multiple elements such as policy change, teacher and administration buy-in, and parent meetings. One intervention, Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS), has been successfully developed and implemented by school social workers, teachers, and parents to address a range of traumatic stressors. This article will review CBITS training and examine how it could be used to address traumatic stressors in children and adolescents to lower future risk for trauma and adverse outcomes. Implications for the application of trauma-informed practice will be discussed. More specifically, how this training can be adapted to meet the specific needs of a school social worker’s unique environment, considering time constraints, student population, and school administration, faculty and staff.
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Deborah Temkin et al. · 2020 · Journal of School Health · Open access
BACKGROUND: As attention to the potential negative outcomes of childhood trauma has grown, so have calls for schools to take an active role in supporting students experiencing trauma. These calls extend beyond efforts initiated by individual schools to include those mandated by state law, which largely focus on teacher training and on screening for adversity. METHODS: This article explores the evidence base and limitations for current approaches in state law and explores how policies to address other student health, safety, and wellness issues can help either ameliorate or exacerbate students' experiences with trauma. RESULTS: Few trainings for nonclinical staff have rigorous evidence of effectiveness, and based on evidence of teacher trainings on other topics, cannot work in environments that do not actively reinforce and encourage the application of that knowledge. Trainings also largely do not acknowledge the structures and systems, including systemic racism within schools, that may contribute to disparate rates of adversity for black and American Indian and Alaskan Native children. Screening carries several risks, including confounding adversity with experiencing trauma, missing broader contextual adversity, and potentially retraumatizing children. CONCLUSIONS: State policymakers need to take a more holistic approach in creating policies to support students experiencing trauma.
Danielle Burns et al. · 2020 · Frontiers in Education · Open access
Transitioning into the university environment can be both exciting and stressful for new and returning students alike. The pressure to perform well academically in an increasingly competitive environment, coupled with a vast array of lifestyle changes, can contribute to suboptimal wellbeing. Over recent years, uptake to wellbeing services within universities in the United Kingdom has grown given the concurrent rise in mental health difficulties reported. Higher education students now have to contend with a drastically altered learning landscape, owing to the discovery of novel coronavirus, Sars-Cov-2, otherwise referred to as COVID-19. In the United Kingdom, universities have moved to close their campuses to both students and non-essential staff in an effort to protect them from contracting the virus. The repercussions of these decisions have been monumental for the delivery of teaching, relationships and, importantly, the provision of student services. Ambiguity remains as to how teaching will be delivered for the forthcoming academic year. The uncertainty caused by the pandemic has yet to be considered in terms of student wellbeing and the new, mostly online, environments that students will be expected to navigate without their typical support networks. For the purpose of this paper, the concept of student wellbeing, a population-level term concerned with positive emotions rather than diagnosed mental health conditions, will be considered in relation to the COVID-19 outbreak. The current paper performs a conceptual analysis on student wellbeing in United Kingdom universities with a specific lens on the psychosocial impact of the global COVID-19 outbreak. Given the unprecedented world that students now learn in, considering the impact of the pandemic on psychosocial outcomes delineates the novel challenges that researchers and practitioners must consider when implementing student wellbeing initiatives moving forward.
Dayna Schimke et al. · 2022 · Frontiers in Education · Open access
There is growing awareness of the impact of intergenerational trauma and community disadvantage on the educational achievement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) children in Australia. Scholars have identified the need for culturally responsive and trauma-informed approaches to complement existing disciplinary and behavior support practices utilized in schools. This pilot research project explored the experiences of primary school teachers who were supported to implement trauma-informed practices in a regional primary school with a large number of First Nations students. Qualitative interviews with eight teachers were conducted after a 3-year (2017–2020) implementation of the Trauma-Informed Behavior Support (TIBS) program. Using a thematic analysis approach, the study identified the following themes: changes in teacher knowledge about the impact of intergenerational trauma, acknowledgment of the multi-systemic influences on student behavior difficulties, increased self-efficacy in providing culturally safe learning environments and strategies for building relationships with First Nations students. The findings offer insights into factors that support the successful and sustainable implementation of culturally responsive and trauma-informed practices in primary school settings.
Scott McLeod & Shelley Dulsky · 2021 · Frontiers in Education · Open access
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread rapidly across the globe, many schools struggled to react both quickly and adequately. Schools were one of the most important societal institutions to be affected by the pandemic. However, most school leaders have little to no training in crisis leadership, nor have they dealt with a crisis of this scale and this scope for this long. This article presents our findings from interviews of 43 school organizations around the globe about their responses during the early months of the pandemic. Primary themes from the interviews included an emphasis on vision and values; communication and family community engagement; staff care, instructional leadership, and organizational capacity-building; equity-oriented leadership practices; and recognition of potential future opportunities. These findings resonate with the larger research literature on crisis leadership and have important implications for school leaders’ future mindsets, behaviors, and support structures during crisis incidents.
the MYRIAD team et al. · 2017 · Trials · Open access
BACKGROUND: MYRIAD (My Resilience in Adolescence) is a superiority, parallel group, cluster randomised controlled trial designed to examine the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a mindfulness training (MT) programme, compared with normal social and emotional learning (SEL) school provision to enhance mental health, social-emotional-behavioural functioning and well-being in adolescence. The original trial protocol was published in Trials (accessible at https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-017-1917-4 ). This included recruitment in two cohorts, enabling the learning from the smaller first cohort to be incorporated in the second cohort. Here we describe final amendments to the study protocol and discuss their underlying rationale. METHODS: Four major changes were introduced into the study protocol: (1) there were changes in eligibility criteria, including a clearer operational definition to assess the degree of SEL implementation in schools, and also new criteria to avoid experimental contamination; (2) the number of schools and pupils that had to be recruited was increased based on what we learned in the first cohort; (3) some changes were made to the secondary outcome measures to improve their validity and ability to measure constructs of interest and to reduce the burden on school staff; and (4) the current Coronavirus Disease 2019 (SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19) pandemic both influences and makes it difficult to interpret the 2-year follow-up primary endpoint results, so we changed our primary endpoint to 1-year follow-up. DISCUSSION: These changes to the study protocol were approved by the Trial Management Group, Trial Steering Committee and Data and Ethics Monitoring Committees and improved the enrolment of participants and quality of measures. Furthermore, the change in the primary endpoint will give a more reliable answer to our primary question because it was collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in both cohort 1 and cohort 2. Nevertheless, the longer 2-year follow-up data will still be acquired, although this time-point will be now framed as a second major investigation to answer some new important questions presented by the combination of the pandemic and our study design. TRIAL REGISTRATION: International Standard Randomised Controlled Trials ISRCTN86619085 . Registered on 3 June 2016.
This report examines data provided by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights to better understand the prevalence of school-based mental health (SBMH) professionals in schools. Asserting that access to emotional, behavioral, and mental health supports are part of accessing a Free and Appropriate Education and are a civil right, Dr. Mann and her collaborators at the ACLU examine the impact of a lack of appropriate SBMH supports in schools. The report authors also examine the consequences of hardening of schools including the proliferation of law enforcement in schools.
Mehmet Akif Karaman et al. · 2021 · Frontiers in Psychology · Open access
The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of COVID-19 on high school students' psychological symptoms and to understand how ready counselors and school counseling services are based on the data we have. Therefore, this research is designed under two different studies: (A) Study 1: Effects of COVID-19 pandemic on students' psychological symptoms and (B) Study 2: Views and expectations of students and school counselors about school counseling services. The first study was a quantitative study and included 549 high school students (398 female, 151 male). A structural equation model (SEM) was created to examine the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on participants' psychological symptoms. The Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) scores showed that 107 (19.50%) individuals had a score of 50 and above pointing out that individuals in this group had severe impact of event/trauma symptomologies. The SEM analysis indicated that IES-R scores had a total effect of 0.79 on anxiety, 0.75 on depression, 0.74 on negative self-concept, 0.68 on somatization, and 0.66 on hostility scores. Furthermore, female students had significantly higher scores on anxiety, depression, negative self-concept, somatization, hostility, and impact of events variables than male students. Study 2 was a qualitative design and consisted of five school counselors and five students from different schools. The results indicated that students' difficulties during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak were educational, cognitive, emotional, physiological, relational, technological, and related to routines. Academic, social, emotional, and behavioral issues came to the fore among the difficulties that can be experienced if students start face-to-face education. On the other hand, the school counselors listed that family relations, personal-social, emotional, and academic themes were the difficulties experienced by the students at the beginning of the COVID-19. In addition, when COVID-19 started, the services offered by school counselors were discussed under (1) services for the student, (2) services for the family, and (3) services for the teacher. Finally, according to the opinions of the school counselors, if students start face-to-face education, they may experience emotional, academic, and relational difficulties. In summary, it is vital that student personality services be prepared and implemented by school counseling services for schools based on the results.
Heather Johnston et al. · 2024 · International Journal for Educational Integrity · Open access
Abstract The aim of this project was to understand student perspectives on generative artificial intelligence (GAI) technologies such as Chat generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT), in order to inform changes to the University of Liverpool Academic Integrity code of practice. The survey for this study was created by a library student team and vetted through focus groups. A total of 2555 students participated in the survey. Results showed that only 7% of students who responded had not heard of any GAI technologies, whilst over half had used or considered using these for academic purposes. The majority of students (54.1%) were supportive or somewhat supportive of using tools such as Grammarly, but 70.4% were unsupportive or somewhat unsupportive towards students using tools such as ChatGPT to write their whole essay. Students who had higher levels of confidence in their academic writing were less likely to use or consider using them for academic purposes, and were also less likely to be supportive of other students using them. Most students (41.1%) also thought there should be a university wide policy on when these technologies are or are not appropriate to use. The results of this research suggest that students require clear policies on the use of GAI and that these technologies should not be banned from university, but consideration must be made to ensure different groups of students have equal access to the technologies.
Andrew Carter · 2015 · Digital Education Resource Archive (University College London) · Open access
In April 2014, the Secretary of State for Education asked me to undertake an independent review of initial teacher training (ITT).The aim of the review would be to identify which core elements of high quality ITT across phases and subject disciplines are key to equipping trainees with the required skills and knowledge to become outstanding teachers.In addition, I was charged with the task of looking at how to improve transparency of training offers and access to courses.At the heart of every community lies a school and at the heart of every school are the teachers.No matter how well organised or detailed the curriculum, how grand or wellresourced the building, what really matters most in a child's education is the quality of the teaching.The challenge for the nation is to maintain a supply of outstanding teachers so that every child has the opportunity to be taught by inspirational, skilled teachers throughout their time in school.This is a mighty and noble aim and one that should not be underestimated.Currently, we need to train approximately 35,000 teachers each year through a range of providers and partnerships, involving both schools and universities.The range of partners offers opportunities for all trainees to find a course that suits their particular needs.Possible debates around whether ITT should be delivered by School-Centred Initial Teacher Training providers (SCITTs) or universities, School Direct or not, are not terribly helpful in this process.The truth is that partnership is the key.Sometimes universities will take the lead, sometimes and increasingly, it will be the schools that lead the way.However, neither can do it alone and our review has made recommendations that emphasise the strength of working together within a system that is increasingly school led.Diversity of provision, whilst identified as a challenge by some, is probably a strength of the system.Trainees are very different -they range from those who come into the profession at an early age to others who are career changers and, of course, all are welcome.Our aim is to ensure that the initial element of training is matched to a rigorous and incrementally supportive professional development programme.ITT should introduce new teachers to crucial elements of knowledge, skills and understanding that all teachers need.ITT should also provide an environment for new teachers to learn from our best