Trauma-sensitive professional development to change teacher perceptions and actions

Abstract

Teachers in urban school districts are often impacted by the adversity and trauma that their students bring with them to school. Most teachers are not trained on how to effectively support students who struggle behaviorally due to the impact of trauma on their brains and bodies. Early childhood trauma not only impacts a teacher’s ability to teach, but more importantly early childhood trauma impacts young people physiologically and threatens their quality of life in adulthood. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the perceptions and actions of teachers to capture changes that occur when teachers participated in professional development regarding early childhood trauma. Interviews were conducted with five teachers and 10 students in Midwestern urban intermediate and middle school. By the end of the study, the teachers stated that they had begun responding to classroom disruption in a more child-centered manner, students noticed that their teachers began treating all students in a more equitable way, and many students noticed their teachers began responding to dysregulated students in trauma-informed manners. The implications from this study are that educating teachers on the impact of early childhood trauma can change the way that teachers perceive and react to students who struggle behaviorally in the classroom. Another implication is that changing teachers’ beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes can be difficult to achieve because some teachers retained a deficit thinking focus.