Learn4Life is taking an organization-wide approach to educational service delivery grounded in understanding trauma, its consequences and promoting healing and resilience. To help staff better understand the approach, training was recently conducted for Learn4Life leaders including teachers, counselors, and administrative staff. The training is designed to increase understanding of proactive, practical, trauma-informed approaches to create cultures of inclusivity. The goal is the have all staff at the 75+ Learn4Life resource centers throughout California become Trauma-Informed certified while moving towards the ultimate goal of creating a Trauma-Informed Career and Community School Model.
Learn4Life is utilizing a Train-the-Trainer model to ensure that all resource centers receive both Level 1 and Level 2 Trauma-Informed Training. Leadership recently trained in Trauma-Informed approaches have begun training the staff in their regions. All staff at the Learn4Life resource centers will go through both levels of training with level one focusing on the basics of ACES science and how it affects student and staff performance and overall health in our resource centers. The second level of the training will start the process of resource centers becoming trauma-informed by creating work groups to ensure that empirically based, trauma-informed practices infuse all areas of the program curriculum; student discipline, instructional methods, community partners, and self-care.
The Level 1 Trauma-Informed Training covers:
- Basic science of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
- The nature, prevalence, and impact of trauma on students and schools
- The Trauma-Informed Career and Community School Model
- Increases the understanding of proactive, practical, trauma-informed approaches to create cultures of inclusivity
- Exposes attendees to strategies on how to increase successful cross-system collaboration between stakeholders within the Community School Model
During the training staff also learn that traumatized children are:
- 5x more likely to fail a grade in school.
- Score lower on standardized achievement tests
- More likely to have struggles in receptive & expressive language
- Suspended & expelled more often
- More frequently placed in special education
By training Learn4Life staff to recognize and understand trauma, it helps Learn4Life students become resilient through restorative practices to build social capital and achieve social discipline through participatory learning and decision-making.
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