It is Monday morning at Abbott Middle School in Elgin, and that means it’s “Mindful Monday” in Emily Valles’ classroom.
The students spent 15 minutes identifying and analyzing how three TV characters reacted to stressful moments. Were the characters in an emotional, reasonable or wise state of mind? How could the students learn from the characters on the screen?
“Who’s going to try to be in a right state of mind today?” Valles asked her students.
At Abbott, educators have been conducting these types of exercises as part of a School District U46 pilot program on trauma-informed care. Five schools currently participate in the hope that the exercises and other initiatives can help students achieve success in the face of stressful situations — some of them significant — that they have or will in the future.
The assumption is all students go through some type of trauma in their childhood years inside and outside of school. Some of them — parental neglect, sexual assault, physical or emotional abuse — can have a devastating effect on a child’s ability to move forward, officials said.
“(Childhood trauma) is not just a life sentence for these kids at a young age, that because you have this going on, you’re doomed for life,” said Tammy Reicha, who leads the school’s Multi-Tiered Systems of Support. “There are ways to teach resiliency.”
Reicha and Mary Abbott, a school social worker and U46’s lead social worker, lead Abbott’s resiliency team, a group of staff members who come up with ways to bring trauma-informed care practices into the building. During the summer, the team completed a three-day training seminar with the Illinois Education Association in which they came up with a plan on how it would be rolled out as a program.
The Abbott resiliency team also trained teachers to use MIND UP curriculum, which focuses on learning about the brain and how it is impacted by trauma and stress. Teachers are also taught ways to identify students who may be dealing with a traumatic life situation that is causing them stress, Abbott said.
“This is a completely different mindset and approach to how we work with kids,” Reicha said. “A lot of things we were doing right, but there were things that we needed to do differently.”
Some students have been asked to take an Adverse Childhood Experiences questionnaire, through which officials can determine if the child has experienced any of 10 stressors. The questionnaire asks about physical, verbal or sexual abuse, physical or emotional neglect, their relationship with parents or guardians, and other issues. Abbott said she would like all students to take the questionnaire or something similar so officials can have a large-picture view of the problems students may be experiencing.
Studies suggest the more traumatic experiences in a child’s life, the more likely they will suffer socially, emotionally or physically, Abbott said.
“We’re teaching kids how to seriously regulate their emotions, be aware of what’s going on with them, to have them understand when (they’re) in that fight/flight or free state, I am not available to learn, my brain can’t access the other parts of my brain in order to learn,” she said. “That’s so profound because even if you look at the research out there, it talks about how if a child is neglected emotionally or physically or abused, it changes the way their brain works.”
Abbott’s program incorporates initiatives like Mindful Mondays, in which all students participate in a weekly mindfulness activity. About 80 students who have exhibited high levels of stress and trauma are part of smaller intervention groups in which they focus on psychotherapy, Abbott said. Four staff members have been trained to run the intervention groups.
In addition to Abbott, Larkin High School in Elgin, Kenyon Woods Middle School in South Elgin, and Harriet Gifford and Highland elementary schools in Elgin are participating in the inaugural program.
The number of U46 schools participating is likely to increase next school year, said John Heiderscheidt, the district’s school safety and culture director.
Twitter @rafaguerrero14
