These teachers see the impact of those challenges on their students every day — in the loud, disruptive behaviors they see in some children, or the quiet sadness they see in others. They fret about some of their students, bringing that worry home at the end of the day. For some, that can trigger difficult memories from their own childhoods. For others, it can affect their interactions with their own families.
The sessions use an approach called reflective supervision that has long been used in the mental health field to help therapists and clinicians work with their supervisors to process their feelings about the difficult situations they see in their work.
Reflective supervision is not used as often in education as it is in mental health.
The approach is part of a growing effort across the country to recognize and address the impact on educators of what’s known as “secondary trauma,” the distress that comes from learning about difficult things that have happened to others.
As educational research increasingly highlights the role that trauma plays in causing challenging student behaviors and in influencing teachers’ responses to them, more schools are adopting what’s known as trauma-informed practices to help teachers better respond to their students’ needs.
To read more of Erin Einhorn's Chalkbeat article, please click here.
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