New toolkit for educator prep programs highlights trauma-informed practices in schools

The North Carolina Center for Resilience & Learning recently released a toolkit about trauma-informed practices in schools, created specifically for educator preparation programs (EPPs) in North Carolina.

The toolkit, “Education Preparation Programs Trauma-Informed Practices,” was designed for EPPs to incorporate into their curriculums. It includes resources that teachers, school counselors, and administrators can use when working with students who have experienced trauma. According to the Center, which is an initiative of the Public School Forum of North Carolina, there was an information gap regarding trauma-informed practices. The Center said educators told them that foundational knowledge about trauma, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and toxic stress were not covered in their initial preparation. 

“Our hope in creating this new toolkit is that it will provide tangible best practices and resources for preparation programs,” Elizabeth DeKonty, the Center’s senior director, said in a press release. “This is critical content, and getting it into the hands of more educators before they enter the field can help many feel even better equipped to best serve their students from a whole child lens.”

In 2023, the Center convened faculty and staff from 12 community colleges for a task force on how trauma-informed education was covered in EPPs. The task force then surveyed 25 colleges and universities to learn about how different programs approached the topic of trauma-informed practices. 

The survey found that most programs include trauma-informed practices in their coursework, according to the press release. However, it also found there is no uniformed effort or statewide standard for what information to include in the curriculum. 

The analysis the Center included with the survey named best practices for implementing the information into programs and modeling for educators. You can read more about them on page five of the report.

In that analysis, the Center also offered policy recommendations for local education agencies (LEA) and policymakers. Those recommendations are listed below. 

Recommendations for policymakers

1. Increase the number of mental health professionals and school counselors in schools.
2. Improve teacher pay and overall teacher working conditions. 
3. Provide trauma-informed training directly to policymakers.
4. Change required course content and objectives by formalizing this type of training and seeking approval for permanent embedding into prep programs.

For LEAs

1. Provide more than “one-and-done” training.
2. Include a multilayer approach in EPPs and through the Department of Public Instruction (DPI)/LEA level, and make this level of training a requirement for educators annually.
3. Model trauma-informed practices at the leadership level within schools and districts and build processes for accountability.

The Center’s toolkit includes three documents, each geared at different EPP curriculums: One for teachers, one for school counselors, and one for administrators.

Each kit begins by describing its audience, purpose, a glossary, and three tiers of topics and standards the program should go through. The document also links to additional resources for educators.

You can read through the three documents at this link.