Creating Connections 

Children who currently are or have had experienced trauma will feel a sense of disconnect from others, causing a sense of isolation. Therefore they will then lack the abilities to make positive connections with others and interventions may need to be required. Craig (2016), suggests that there be a multifaceted approach covers 3 main areas:

• Reestablishing adults are safe
• Teaching Social Skills
• Service Learning

Reestablishing Adults as Safe

Students need to begin to feel that I am a reliable source to go to and that I will maintain an appropriate level of standards and expectations based around what I know about their emotional and behavioral needs and that I can be a person who will help guide them towards regulation. I hope to offer to my students that I can be a person who they can be comfortable enough in asking for help to navigate their feelings, or struggles with relationships. Let’s also be so real right now…this is easier for me with some students and not so easy with others; that is just something I need to work on; being emotionally available to all my students not just to the ones that don’t annoy me or get under my skin. Let’s face it I am human!

Teaching Social Skills

How I see this happening in my classroom will go and can go 3 different ways depending on the needs of my classroom. I do see the benefit in teaching all students social skills as a collective but there are going to be times where a more explicit and direct approach is needed in smaller groups or 1:1 situations. So thinking back to the 3 tier system of interventions and working in a proactive way this could happen during my morning meetings, the wellness coach coming in to teach the class about mindfulness (tier 1), small groups at my c-table with me or my educational assistant within the classroom or in a another room pending the activity that we are doing (I would not want to draw attention to my social skills group in the classroom and potentially have them embarrassed because we are specifically role playing or something of that nature (tier 2), and then there would last intervention in this area and that could be the schools Student Support Services Teacher/Wellness Coach/School Psychologist having to work more specifically with a student or a small group of students outside my room. These are already things I have put into place this year in my classroom; specifically targeting social skills, I know we naturally talk about social skills but I have usually done it in a more fluffier type way; this year it has been more intentional and explicit, probably because I am also teaching my health curriculum this year and it is tied to outcomes.

Service Learning 

I really like this idea, like really like this. What a great way to empower a child by giving them a way to make a positive contribution to the community; even better that is can possibly help restore their resilience or adaptive capacity, increase their own self care, and to care for others. The message is so powerful. they have a purpose, they are not worthless, they can pursue meaningful things in their lives. The MOMENT I read this part of Craig (2016), I knew I had to give this a go! You know what? I found out that my little peanut loves do jobs. So I saw an opportunity, him and I created a list of all the jobs he would like to do around the school/classroom, he was excited. This intervention worked, he came into the school without an issue, grabbed his cleaning supplies and rag and off he went cleaning the desks in multiple classrooms. He was so proud of himself, he asked if he could stay in and do it at recess to finish off the rest of the rooms. Brilliant, nailed it, found something that will work! It worked for that one day and that one day only… Now even though it worked for one day, I have a list created of possible acts of service he can do that when in the right frame of mind or when he may need a “change the channel” moment (I learned this courtesy of Nathalie).

Humans I believe need connections and therefore we need each other, people will connect with others for negative reasons and others positive. My hope is that I can be a person where when children enter into my classroom whether it is for that school year or for years to come I can create a space where they can see me as safe, see me as a role model, know they can make mistakes, fail, and fall but I will always be there to lend them a hand to get up and try again.

Until next time… Whenever, Where Ever, Humans are meant to be together…