Participants review high-quality, contemporary research from diverse academic fields, including education, labor, psychology and public health, to understand how myriad forms of violence can impact children’s developing brains, bodies and behaviors. This knowledge lays a foundation for practicing 25 trauma-informed skills that prevent harm, boost resilience and promote healing for all students.
Facilitators foster authentic learning with peers and use a variety of approaches to connect with adult learners, including structured assessments, videos, dialogue, reflection, case study, close reading, active problem-solving, role play, guided adaptation of materials and environmental analysis. Every course experience focuses on leading participants to leverage new insights toward actionable application of evidence-based trauma-informed practices.
In the textbook and throughout course activities, participants are called to address power—of students, of educators and of collectives, such as teacher unions. We also integrate meaningful examples and serious critical attention to marginalized people, including by moving them to the center of planning and investigations, to reorient how we evaluate the effects of what came before and to expand our dreaming of what may be necessary for healing and health.
CARE-FULL is organized around 25 trauma-informed skills. Each skill is covered in a stand-alone training module (aka workshop) with activities for practical application. Modules are grouped into recommended sections:
Becoming trauma-informed includes four modules that focus on thriving educators acting in strategic and liberatory collaboration: Elevate Educator Wellness; Strengthen Work Relationships for Change; Practice Grounding; and Exercise Healthy Relational Boundaries.
Promote well-being includes four modules that introduce foundational science on adverse childhood experiences and the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s 3Es framework to guide trauma-informed interventions: Develop a Lens, Not a Label; Facilitate Post-Traumatic Growth; Support Grieving Students; and Reduce the Risk of Abuse.
Healing-centered engagement, named after Shawn Ginwright’s concept by the same name, focuses on its component skills in four modules: Show Empathy; Critically Reflect; Take Loving Political Action; and Foster Imagination.
Regulate, relate, reason commits four modules to the tenets of Bruce Perry’s Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics: Prevent Re-Traumatization; Teach Diverse Coping Skills; Facilitate Positive Experiences; and De-Escalate Stressful Scenarios.
Restorative practices includes five modules that aim to strengthen skills for restorative justice in schools: Stop Bullying; Discipline with Dignity; Interrupt Shame; Coordinate Repentance; and Encourage Emotional Literacy.
Collective healing examines whole-school and whole-district approaches in four modules that broaden beyond individual educators’ skills to more coordinated efforts, such as those that may be led and championed in labor-management collaboration: Embrace the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child; Champion the Common Good; Effectively Engage Families; and Institutionalize Mandated Support.