This project seeks to address historical legacies of trauma towards indigenous Peruvians that persist, despite policies to address this, in Peru’s current education system (Rousseau & Dargent, 2019). Traumatic school environments—which may include corporal punishment or shaming towards children using indigenous languages (Sumida Huaman, 2014)—actively undermine the well-being and resilience of indigenous children. Through this project, school environments will change from being traumatic to trauma-informed, transforming schools into a place that supports the well-being of students and builds resilience in students and communities. To do this, the proposal seeks to engage four schools in Peru, where teachers and staff will receive training in social-emotional learning and trauma-informed principles and then will engage in dialogue sessions with community members over a period of months. Ultimately, indigenous community members will be able to contribute to a redesign of the schools’ curriculum to something that welcomes and embraces indigenous culture, knowledge, and ways of knowing.
This project uses a public health framework to understand the scope of the proposed intervention in addressing ACEs. This project is intended as a primary intervention that seeks to prevent possible ACEs and build resilience that may help mitigate the effects of potential ACEs in other areas of children’s lives. This project will seek to prevent ACEs and build resilience by providing a safe and supportive environment, and a curriculum that incorporates elements of social-emotional learning. This should prevent ACEs children may experience due to traumatic school environments, provide potential buffers in the form of supportive adult relationships in schools, and build their individual resilience. If this project is successful, we would expect to see improved health outcomes from children attending these schools, as we reduce their exposure to trauma and increase their ability to recover from traumatic events.
Using a version of the social-ecological described by McLeroy et al. (1988), this project attempts to create change at the institutional/organizational level, the interpersonal level, and at the community level. The project focuses on the institution level of the social-ecological model because of the way institutions have and continue to cause trauma for communities. Changing the institutional culture of schools will have a significant impact on the lives of the children. This project addresses the interpersonal level because building empathy and communication is necessary to support a changed institutional culture. This project includes work at the community level of the social-ecological model because education has historically been something that has been imposed. Only by bringing community members in and giving them power over the process of curriculum redesign can steps be taken toward creating culturally appropriate and supportive curricula.
This project also uses trauma-informed principles. To incorporate the principle of empowerment, voice, and choice, the project will seek to diffuse power through partner schools by giving training and voice to all staff members, not just teachers or administrators. Collaboration and mutuality, and trustworthiness and transparency will be addressed through dialogue between school staff and community members, which intends to empower community members to shape the project while helping everyone learn about other perspectives and experiences. This project ultimately seeks to change the way children are taught in schools so that they are supported, and their experiences and feelings are respected, which gets at several of the trauma-informed principles (such as safety, peer support, and empowerment, voice, and choice). The engagement of the community in the project will help to incorporate community and indigenous voices into the project and curriculum redesign, breaking down historical legacies of oppressive education, which addresses the trauma-informed principle on cultural, historical, and gender issues.
References
McLeroy, K. R., Bibeau, D., Steckler, A., & Glanz, K. (1988). An ecological perspective on health promotion programs. Health Education Quarterly, 15(4), 351–377.
Rousseau, S., & Dargent, E. (2019). The Construction of Indigenous Language Rights in Peru: A Language Regime Approach. Journal of Politics in Latin America, 11(2), 161–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X19866527
Sumida Huaman, E. (2014). “You’re Trying Hard, but It’s Still Going to Die”: Indigenous Youth and Language Tensions in Peru and the United States. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 45(1), 71–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/aeq.12048
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