Hello!
I'm a board member of the Osborn School District and we recently passed a resolution supporting trauma informed practices. We are currently looking for sample policy and suggestions to help with the creation of policy. Does anyone have any documents or resources?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Katie Paetz
Osborn School Board President
Hi Katie,
Educational policy, as you well know, is a tricky beast. I would suggest starting with broad, non-mandated policy that may exist within the district. This could be anything from communication policy to policy/practices on how meetings are conducted.
When we examine current literature in Trauma Informed anything, the stall point is often at policy, because we get stuck trying to quantify and operationalize a fundamental shift in paradigm and thinking about ourselves and others. That being said, at Trauma Transformed we have found areas such as crisis debriefing as areas that blend fairly seamlessly with trauma informed principles.
At the school level the most salient policy that I am asked about is discipline policy. Here in California there is great disparity in suspension and expulsion both by race and class. Policies that support PBIS and restorative practices seem to be gaining the most traction.
Hope that helps a little.
Matt Reddam, LMFT
Trauma Transformed Policy and Practice Coordinator
Trauma Responsive Schools Consultant--Northstate
