School Resource Officers (SROs) have an immense job. They are not only tasked with maintaining the safety and security of the school and grounds, but often also play the role of mentor. Working within the academic environment provides challenges to law enforcement but also offers an immense opportunity to make a difference in the lives of children, who will one day be the adults making up our communities. An important key to embracing this role effectively is recognizing how trauma affects children and embracing programs that bring trauma-informed care into our schools.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study
In the late 90s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with Kaiser Permanente to conduct the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study looking at how childhood experiences affect health and behavior. The results of this study were pivotal in two important ways. First, is it showed that negative childhood experiences, such as violence, substance abuse and neglect were more pervasive than we thought and second, these experiences made an enormous impact on a person’s emotional, physical and social well-being for years. Due to this, professionals began to recognize that students who were acting out in school were often responding to their trauma. This gave us the ability to relook at our responses to these behaviors. Viewing behavior through a trauma-informed lens allows us to be more effective and make lasting changes in a child’s behaviors, as well as, their academic and social success.
Compassionate Schools
In response to ACE, many academic settings wanted more information and more training on how to incorporate trauma-informed care into their schools. SROs wanted to know how to handle behaviors in an appropriate and effective manner. Washington State responded by developed Compassionate Schools: The Heart of Learning and Teaching. The program is a collaboration between public schools, university and Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) professionals and culminated in the book, The Heart of Learning and Teaching: Compassion, Resiliency, and Academic Success. They offer this material for free as a download on their website so anyone, even those outside of the state can access the information with the hopes of implementing this “compassionate teaching approach” all over the nation. The book not only clearly outlines how to incorporate trauma-informed care into the classroom, but also encourages all adults to get educated and get involved. “We can overcome the silos of our different fields to provide schools with the support they need to help all children learn,” Susan Cole, Director Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative: Massachusetts Advocates for Children and Harvard Law School Lead author of Helping Traumatized Children Learn explains in the preface.
An essential predecessor to this project was Gertrude Morrow’s 1987 book, The Compassionate School: A Practical Guide to Educating Abused and Traumatized Children. Morrow was among the first to recognize, “withdrawing, acting out aggressively, and regressing to younger behaviors are among the many ways students react to trauma.” Her three elements to creating “compassionate schools” included the need for teams, including educational and community teams. In our current climate, the team includes everyone, not just teachers, administrative staff and counselors, but bus drivers, coaches, custodians, cafeteria workers and school resources officers. It also includes parents and other family members.
How Trauma Affects Learning
Domestic violence, financial insecurity, parental substance use, crime—children are faced with negative experiences in their homes and communities on a regular basis. “Every day in schools across Washington State and the nation, there are students who arrive in classrooms feeling hungry, tired, frustrated and alone—students who are impacted by alcohol and drugs, are homeless, have physical or mental health-related issues, are in danger of dropping out of school, or are struggling with a learning disability often lack vital connections to their family, their school and their community,” outlines The Heart of Learning. When children are dealing with chronic stress and trauma they are unable to focus, often re-experience trauma, and experience hyperarousal, avoidance and anxiety.
Conventional methods of dealing with the behavior of a child dealing with trauma are not applicable and do not work when you are faced with a child acting out of survival mode. Their brain is literally affecting their world-view and their behaviors are responding to this. The opening to the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) video, Children, Violence, and Trauma: Interventions in Schools sends a clear message, “Survival trumps learning for children who have trauma in their lives.” As carers for these children, we need to be able to meet them where they are and come up with solutions and resources that will get their basic needs met so they can focus on intellectual pursuits. It’s unreasonable to expect a child to think about the effect of their current behaviors on their future lives when they are worried about what is going to happen to them that afternoon, whether or not they will eat, sleep in a safe place or have to protect themselves from violence in the streets or in their home.
Changing our perceptions and attitudes benefits the children we serve, the academic environment and the entire community. Utilizing resources like Compassionate Schools, we can increase our trauma-informed learning environments. Working as a team, we can make a difference not only in the school environment but in the lives of children, many of whom are the ones that need us most.
Michelle Perin
Michelle Perin has been a freelance writer since 2000. In December 2010, she earned her Master’s degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Indiana State University.
