Unburdened by false humility, postmodern trauma activists claim to have understood for the first time what drives all of human suffering
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Trauma DispatchTrauma news you can't get anywhere else. |
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CATEGORY: SCHOOLS Left: David Colley, PhD, Oxford Brookes University. Right: Laura Dennis, Education Outreach Lead, Mulberry Bush Source: Oxford Mail Read time: 2.2 minutes This Happened On June 20, 2024, the Mulberry Bush charity sponsored a one-day conference on ways to address childhood trauma in schools. Who Did This? Mulberry Bush, a 75-year-old charity based in Standlake, UK, conducts trainings and runs a residential school of about 20 students, ages 5 to 12, who have suffered some form of trauma. Laura Dennis, a former school teacher, is the Education Outreach Lead. The university co-host was Oxford Brookes University, led by David Colley, PhD, in the School of Education. Colley has published several papers supportive of nurture groups in schools. The Premise This Research Conference goal was to disseminate the findings from several projects that have attempted to embed trauma and attachment training in UK schools.
Analysis This conference is an example of how the trauma-informed approaches movement is not just popular in the US. It also has strong footholds in Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Australia, and perhaps other countries. The most well-developed of the programs in the conference is the nurture group model, which was developed in the 1970s and is now implemented in over 2,000 schools in the UK [1].
This model shares similarities with some American models of supporting troubled children, but there are no known nurture groups in the US. NurtureUK, a charity for promoting the nurture group model, released a report in 2019 stating that more than 100 studies have found positive effects from nurture groups. The model was hailed as a tremendously successful program that likely pays for itself after just two years. A literature review in 2014, however, found only twelve outcomes studies [2] which had multiple major limitations. None of the studies were randomized. As such, no studies had outcomes measured with blind raters. While some behaviors improved, no studies found improvements in academic tests. There is no known financial analysis that shows that nurture groups pay for themselves. Only one study had a follow-up that measured outcomes beyond the end of a school year. Researchers re-assessed children a mean of 2.7 years after the group ended, but they managed to follow only 12 of the 68 children who started the study. These children did not significantly improve on 16 of 20 domains that were tested [3]. The training for teachers in this model shares a common goal with the other trauma-informed approaches of instilling a culture in the belief of a misleading narrative of neuroscience that has been debunked. They embrace the toxic stress narrative that prolonged stress becomes toxic, and high levels of cortisol “can impact the developing brain and alter the structure and function of key brain areas” [1]. REFERENCES [1] Nurture Groups (booklet) (2019). Published by NurtureUK, https://www.nurtureuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Nurture-Groups-Booklet-Dec-2019.pdf [2] Naomi Katherine Hughes & Annette Schlösser (2014) The effectiveness of nurture groups: a systematic review, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 19:4, 386-409, DOI: 10.1080/13632752.2014.883729 [3] O’Connor, T., and J. Colwell. 2002. The Effectiveness and Rationale of the ‘Nurture Group’ Approach to Helping Children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Remain Within Mainstream Education. British Journal of Special Education 29 (2): 96–100. Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices of new posts on this page. CATEGORY: SCHOOLS Sarah Lindstrom Johnson, PhD Source: Arizona State University News Read time: 2.0 minutes This Happened On June 4, Arizona State University held a virtual, all-day conference for educators called the Trauma-Sensitive School Symposium. Who Did This? The organizer was Sarah Lindstrom Johnson, associate professor in the School of Social and Family Dynamics. She holds a PhD in public health. Johnson has been first or secondary author on over 80 peer-reviewed publications that focused on school climate, trauma-informed practices, and bullying. The Premise The trauma-informed movement advocates a wide range of loosely-defined concepts. The goals for this conference included recognizing the signs of trauma, implementing culturally responsive interventions, and creating compassionate spaces for student well-being. Common to all efforts in the movement is a framework that there is almost always a reason for a person’s behavior—there are no inherent traits of dysfunction—and the reason is usually trauma. This was the eighth conference in the Arizona State series. In 2023, the conference was attended by over 700 educators. Lindstrom Johnson is one of many scientist advocates supported by their universities who are aggressively promoting the trauma-informed ideology. Analysis Because the trauma-informed concept is a list of practices that cover so many different and loosely-defined things, it does not represent a standardized or coherent technique, which makes it nearly impossible to study. The key underlying premise of trauma-informed trainings is always to install an intellectual framework more than it is to recommend specific tasks. The framework is to convince participants that trauma has impacts on everyone—children, families, teachers–and the impacts are wide-ranging across physical health, mental health, and ability to function in daily life. If you remove evidence-based psychotherapy treatment for PTSD, which was supported by research well before the trauma-informed movement started, from the list of practices, there are no research studies that show trauma-informed practices can improve any outcomes of substance. Even reviews that are sympathetic to the movement acknowledge the absence of evidence. For example, a recent review of trauma-informed practices in healthcare concluded, “Our first important finding is that the empirical evidence base for the effectiveness of trauma-informed organisational change interventions in primary care and community mental healthcare is very limited” [1]. Why Is This Happening? Postmodern activists' attempts to leverage the concept of trauma as an oppressive force that determines all the disadvantaged groups in society has been operational for nearly thirty years. This trauma paradigm arose from psychologist- and psychiatrist-activists and then found traction in social work and counselor training programs that are focused on social justice. This trauma ideology expanded outside of psychology at the same time as popularity rose for other progressive movements such as critical race theory, DEI, and transgenderism. They all share an underlying reframing of human nature as fragile and highly malleable. Attendees at these types of conferences tend to be a subgroup of progressive educators who wish to redefine the traditional role of teachers. They believe children are fragile and need to be protected from every life challenge by teachers who take on mental health and auxiliary parenting duties. Greg Lukianoff and Johnathan Haidt described this phenomenon at the university level in their 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind. Abigail Shrier described this at the elementary and high school level in her 2024 book Bad Therapy. Conservative activists like Christopher Rufo have taken action against progressive schools and have been at the forefront of dismantling woke policies in educational settings [2]. REFERENCES [1] Natalia V. Lewis, Angel Bierce, Gene S. Feder, John Macleod, Katrina M. Turner, Stan Zammit, Shoba Dawson, "Trauma-Informed Approaches in Primary Healthcare and Community Mental Healthcare: A Mixed Methods Systematic Review of Organizational Change Interventions", Health & Social Care in the Community, vol. 2023, Article ID 4475114, 18 pages, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/4475114 [2] Christopher F. Rufo (November 28, 2023). The Fight for New College. A short documentary on the counterrevolution in higher education. Substack. https://christopherrufo.com/p/the-fight-for-new-college Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices of new posts on this page. CATEGORY: SCHOOLS Melanie Geddings-Hayes, LCSW, Director of Clinical Services, Paths for Families Source: Paths for Families press release Read time: 2.5 minutes This Happened. Paths for Families, a nonprofit organization in Maryland, announced April 8, 2024 that it was awarded $770,000 by the state to implement trauma-informed services in Prince George’s County high schools. Who Did This? The funding comes from the Maryland General Assembly under the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. The Blueprint was a major piece of legislation passed in 2021 that made comprehensive changes to Maryland’s public education system that spans pre-K to high school, with a priority on diversity and equity of outcomes. Among other changes, it mandated access to mental health practitioners for students and professional development for school staff on how to provide trauma–informed interventions. Melanie Geddings-Hayes, LCSW, director of clinical services at Paths for Families, said “Our team has worked with populations in need of trauma-responsive care for more than three decades, so we're uniquely qualified to serve this critical community need.” The Premise In 2021, Maryland embarked on a massive plan for investing $3.8 billion over ten years to raise the quality of public education because various metrics showed mediocre performance, including large academic achievement gaps based on race and income [1]. One of the recommendations to elevate under-performing students was to institute “broad and sustained new academic, social service, and health supports for students and schools that need them the most,” which, to a large degree, meant trauma-informed care. The premise of this strategy is based on the belief that trauma is a source, perhaps the main source, of a vast array of mental and physical problems for dysfunctional individuals in society. The $770,000 funding to Paths for Families was for only one of Maryland’s twenty-three counties for just a 16-month period. Prince George’s is the second most populated county in the state. According to the press release, Paths for Families will provide evidence-based counseling to high school students living in foster care or with an adoptive parent. They will also conduct trauma-informed care trainings for teachers and staff at all 33 high schools in the county. Analysis The strategy to provide evidence-based counseling to high school students sounds potentially helpful, but there are a number of problems with these types of programs. Uptake and effectiveness are notoriously poor with counseling for youths and families who are not seeking it. Providing counseling to youths does not provide the same guarantee of benefits as providing medical care such as vaccinations, medications, eye care, and dental care. In addition, the counseling is likely to be school-based, on the grounds that this makes access easier for youths. There is, however, little to no data that shows school-based produces better, or even equal, uptake or results than office-based. Plus, it has the disadvantages of minimizing parental involvement and problematic issues of maintaining confidentiality for students. Further, there is zero good scientific evidence that treating trauma leads to remediation of learning problems or school achievement on a public health scale. Details of the training for teachers to be provided by Paths for Families were not listed, but if it is like all other trauma-informed trainings it will be based on the doctrines of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) and toxic stress, which teach that stress and trauma permanently damage brains, cause a huge swath of physical diseases, and cause most of the problems of disadvantaged groups in society. Despite a consensus of a subgroup of medical and social sciences researchers who advocate for this ideology, none of the claims based on ACEs and toxic stress have been proven. The claims are based on poorly-designed cross-sectional studies and one-sided interpretations of data to fit their worldview. Why Is This Happening? Over the past decade, dozens of programs nearly identical to this have emerged over the country, mostly in counties and states controlled by progressive leftist legislators. They are based on an ideology that human nature is highly malleable from life experiences, which is the basis of a larger suite of progressive doctrines that attempt to explain disadvantages and minority groups as products of oppression which require government control and intervention. REFERENCES [1] Maryland Commission on Innovation & Excellence in Education (December 2020). Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. Final Report. Department of Legislative Services, Annapolis, MD. Accessed 5/10/2024. Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices of new posts on this page. CATEGORY: SCHOOLS Anita Faulkner, MS, Director of NCA-STAR Source: UNC Greensboro Read time: 1.8 minutes This Happened University of North Carolina at Greensboro launched an online training program for educators to become trauma-informed. The Trauma-Informed Professional Practice K-12 Educator Certificate Program was announced on their website February 5, 2024. Who Did This? The training program is a product of UNC Greensboro’s North Carolina Academy for Stress Trauma and Resilience (NCA-STAR), which is housed within the university’s Department of Counseling and Educational Development. NCA-STAR was created in 2019, and the inaugural director, Anita Faulkner, was appointed in 2021. The Premise The premise is that when teachers learn how trauma and stress impacts a wide range of children’s emotions, sense of self, learning, and aggression, then they can implement new skills in classrooms to make children and schools more successful. Analysis The fourteen-hour course provides educators with an understanding of trauma’s impact on the lives of students, teachers, staff, and families. The topics include:
The cost is $349. Why Is This Happening? The “trauma-informed” concept originated in the early 2000s but has always been vaguely defined, with no consensus on a definition. This vagueness may be seen as a strength by allowing many projects to fall under its umbrella. As a result, the number of training programs, such as this one, have grown tremendously over the past fifteen years. Should This Be Attempted? Despite many individuals claiming that one or another interaction with a trauma-informed approach greatly helped them, there are no known tests of the effectiveness of these approaches. Because of the way trauma-informed approaches are broadly defined, it is nearly impossible to test them. The studies that have been published relied mostly on trainees’ self-perceptions of whether they feel better educated. What’s Next? Proponents of trauma-informed approaches appear to be more interested in promoting the premise that trauma is the root cause of nearly all disadvantages than in gathering evidence. It seems likely that controversies at the school level may start to increase as more funds and time are invested in these approaches without an evidence base. Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices of new posts on this page. CATEGORY: SCHOOLS Nick Morio, trauma and resiliency coach (Credit WKBN 27 News) Source: WFMJ 21 news Read time: 2.5 minutes This Happened Akron Children’s School Health Services hired an individual to fill a new position called a “trauma and resiliency coach” who will work with local schools. Who Is Doing This? Akron Children’s is a hospital and outpatient clinics system that provides pediatric care in multiple counties in northeast Ohio. The system includes a School Health Services program to treat primarily medical problems in school-based clinics. Addressing trauma and stress in schools has not previously been a service they offer. Covelli Enterprises, one of the largest restaurant franchisees in the United States, provided the funding. Nick Morio, a former educator, will be the new trauma and resiliency coach. He does not appear to be a licensed counselor. It’s not clear what his training is for this position. The Premise The premise is that when teachers learn how trauma and stress impacts a wide range of children’s emotions, sense of self, learning, aggression (and much more) then they can implement new skills in classrooms to make children and schools more successful. Why is the coach needed? The justification for this new position, according to Missy McClain, Community Outreach Coordinator for Akron Children’s, is that trauma has a wide and enduring impact on everything. In an interview, she stated, Trauma “is more than just about experiencing sad or scary things. . . . And it can impact us throughout our lives. And it can impact the ways we’re able to behave at school, the ways we’re able to learn in school, the ways we’re able to communicate about our feelings, our physical health as we grow older. Trauma is something that can color everything that we do in our lives.” (emphasis added). What will the coach do? He will go into schools to help teachers and other school staff understand what children are going through after experiencing trauma and stress. He will provide professional development for teachers and tips on classroom planning to help keep troubled children in classrooms. McClain stated that she thinks of the coaching job as “building a culture of wellness for all of the students who are there but especially for our students who might be having a tougher time at home or in their communities.” McClain explained that the coach will educate teachers on how to help students handle stress “through positive communication,” and “coping mechanisms like taking deep breaths, and counting to ten, and, you know, even doing things like mindfulness can really help.” Analysis The theory that trauma and stress have enduring impacts on every aspect of our lives is the identical theory behind the unproven adverse childhood experiences (ACE) theory, the toxic stress myth, and the debunked theory of the best-selling book The Body Keeps the Score. Many schools have implemented various types of these programs across the country over the past ten years. There is little good or consistent evidence that the programs have positive impacts on school attendance, learning, disruptive behavior, or mental health. It is unlikely that this program will truly help many children who are struggling with these issues. Given recent publicity about teachers across the nation providing controversial gender and race communications without parental awareness, it was notable that McClain's description of the job did not include how parents would be informed of or give consent for interventions with students. Why Is This Happening? These types of programs keep expanding across the country because they are seamless with the ideological beliefs of many educators that human nature is highly malleable by life experiences and a more ideal society can be reached someday if we invest more. These types of interventions are in line philosophically with other controversial efforts by schools to teach progressive interpretations of race and gender. What’s Next? How will they know if it works? No plan for program evaluation was announced. It is impossible to gather conclusive evidence on the effectiveness of uncontrolled, unsystematic, and unstandardized interventions like this one. At best, the program ought to document case reports of how individual teachers and students were helped. Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices of new posts on this page. CATEGORY: SCHOOLS Josh Carlson, LCSW, Executive Director of The Knowledge Center at Chaddock Source: KHQA Staff Read time: 2.4 minutes This is Happening The Knowledge Center at Chaddock, a non-profit organization in Quincy, IL, will hold its third-annual conference to train teachers in trauma-informed approaches. The two-day event will be March 6 & 7, 2024. Who Is Doing This? The Center offers trainings, supervision, and publications, with much of its work based on their trademarked Developmental Trauma and Attachment Program® model. The Premise The premise is that when teachers learn how trauma impacts a wide range of children’s emotions, neurobiology, sense of self, learning, aggression (and much more) then they can implement new skills in classrooms to make children and schools more successful. Analysis Among the fifteen presentations, teachers will learn how to prevent burn out, use circles to transform classroom culture, connect with the whole child as a person, build a vocabulary to become truly trauma-informed on six core principles, play the Brain Architecture Game to learn how trauma and ACEs change children’s brains, use reflection to understand emotional responses, engage families, identify why kids misbehave, learn the Nurtured Heart Approach® to reduce aggression, use writing to help students turn pain into power, and hear from a keynote speaker who believes that “Every child faces a moment in life that determines their future self.” There is, however, no good evidence that implementation of a trauma-informed culture enhances well-being, reduces disruptive behaviors, or helps children learn better. The slogan “trauma-informed” was invented in the early 2000s for the purpose of trying to popularize a narrative, and is not a scientific term. There is no consensus on what it means to be trauma-informed. Trainings teach that becoming trauma-informed is a never-ending process rather than a specific outcome. Central to the narrative is that nearly all aspects of humans are molded by life experiences nearly to the exclusion of inherited genetic predispositions, which is captured in the catchphrase “What happened to you?”, as opposed to “What is wrong with you?” Why Is This Happening? Empowering teachers to replace the rightful roles of parents as being responsible for childrens’ social and emotional education is in line with other controversial efforts by schools such as teaching progressive revisions of race (diversity, equity, and inclusion; critical race theory) and gender identity. Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices of new posts here. Send comments and questions to (pending). |
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