Background
Perform a literature review and create a summary of findings of similar projects to determine best practices for your project.
Discuss what has been done before that may be relevant and applicable to replicate at your community partner site.
With your community partner, determine which stakeholders should be contacted and perform key informant interviews. Develop a database of key informants and contacts (use your project folder accessed on your Data page).
This project is centered on mobilizing an effort to educate local Cincinnati school districts on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), toxic stress, and how training on trauma informed care can be impactful for both students and staff. This project comes from the need identified by the “school age channel” component of the Joining Forces for Children organization. ACEs have been shown to have a significant impact on the academic and personal success of children; however, ACEs can be difficult to identify and even harder to manage, particularly in academic settings. In order to accomplish the goals of this project, this project will primarily be composed of direct advocacy by way of educating and directly presenting to local school boards, school administrators, and Parent-Teacher Organizations (PTOs). The overarching goal of this project is to start conversations around these topics in school systems and provide resources as well as training opportunities for staff members. By raising awareness of the need for trauma informed care in school settings and providing resources and opportunities for this training, the hope is that kids will have better outcomes by way of building resilience to ACEs and by changing the mindset of educators.
The need for this project was initially identified by the school-age channel of the broader Joining Forces for Children organization. Their unique perspective helped this group to identify a need for more formal training on ACEs (what they are, how to identify them, etc) and toxic stress, as well as how to appropriately care for students dealing with these in school settings to ultimately promote resilience. Dustin Gehring, the Assistant Director of Student Services at Northwest Local School District and one of the leaders of this project, described a history in school settings of a “you come to us” mentality, in which for many years the burden has been on students to seek out help when they are struggling. Such a task can be incredibly difficult for young students, and as a result, many students have been unable to get the help they need. However, this group has identified a need for schools to change this mindset, become more proactive, and ask different questions in order to better identify and help kids experiencing trauma.