Dealing with Post Covid Trauma in school
The ongoing situation and school closures as result of Covid-19 have a number of different implications for the education sector. We want to dig deeper into these issues, with help from the experts. This week, Lynn Miles, from Centre for Social Innovation, at Teesside University, looks at dealing with Post Covid Trauma in school.
Covid-19 has been a traumatic experience for many of us. As the definition of trauma explains, it has been and continues to be a deeply distressing and disturbing event that overwhelms our ability to cope, causes feelings of helplessness, diminishes our sense of self and our ability to feel the full range of emotions and experiences. That is challenging enough for the most resilient adult, but for our children the impact of Covid-19 could remain with them for many years.
Statistics suggest that as many as half of our children in the UK will have suffered one adverse, potentially traumatic, experience before the age of 18; 10% will have endured four or more (Bellis, 2014; Young Minds, 2018). But as we know, trauma does not discriminate, and now we all – both adults and children – are experiencing such extraordinary events, that many more of us may be left feeling helpless, numb and overwhelmed.
So, whilst many of our most distressed children have been, and continue to be, isolated and punished for behaviours relating to their trauma, we can no longer ignore these cries for help when the likelihood is that we are going to see many more of them in our classes as a result of the pandemic.
The research tells us that without intervention, adversity and trauma can impact children’s physical, social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic and brain development. It can impair executive functioning – working memory, emotional and impulse control, organisation, ability to prioritise and make predictions, flexible thinking, self-monitoring – all vital for effective learning. And toxic levels of stress can cause children’s stress response system to become overactive and their nervous system to become dysregulated, causing them to see threat and danger around them where there may be none. In the long term adversity and trauma can have a detrimental impact on physical and mental health, school experience, life chances and length and quality of life.
Our children’s brains organise from the bottom to the top, with the lower parts of the brain – the brainstem (survival brain) – developing first and the neocortex (thinking brain) much later. Sadly, children who have experienced trauma can become stuck in their brainstem and swing between the survival modes of fight, flight, freeze and collapse. Children who are stuck in their brainstem cannot learn.
Children (and adults) may have developed sensitised alarm and nervous systems as a result of their experiences during Covid-19; of course, many of our children (and adults) lived with this before the pandemic. Dr Stephen Porges calls this ‘neuroception’ – our subconscious system for detecting threats and safety. Those of us with ‘faulty neuroception’ may detect danger everywhere.
As Dr Gabor Mate suggests, safety doesn’t come from a lack of threat it comes from connection with people. Education professionals already know that attuned relationships are what allow children to learn, and now more than ever we need to ensure this is this case. As Dr Bruce Perry explains, the more healthy relationships a child has, the more likely he will recover from trauma and thrive. Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love.
So, the adults in our schools need to be the source of calm, safety and security when we return in September. If teachers and TAs are anxious, children will sense it and anxiety is evident in the eyes, tone of voice, body language, head movements and vocal bursts. As Dr Bruce Perry says, security is the key to an optimal learning environment.
Our understanding of trauma-informed care suggests that schools need to prioritise the following on their return:
- Strong adult-child relationships
- Children’s ability to self-regulate attention. emotions and behaviours
- A sense of belonging
- Good cognition skills and increasing competencies across all areas of development
All within an environment promoting the core ‘trauma-informed’ values of safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration and empowerment.
Our classrooms have always needed to be trauma-informed and compassionate – now more so than ever. This means, a place where our children feel physically and psychologically safe, where there is an established predictability, a clear sense of trust, where children are offered choices, where they are truly seen, heard and valued and where the environment enables them to remain regulated.
Dr Bruce Perry explains, that in order to help our children remain in their ‘learning brain’ or return to it after a stress response is triggered, we must ensure they are:
- Regulated – calm, out of their brainstem and fight, flight, freeze
- Relating – connecting to others through an attuned relationship
- Able to reason – so our children can reflect, learn and remember
So with this in mind, it is essential that we proactively weave activities into the school day, little and often, that will enable our children to remain calm, open to connecting with others and in a good place to learn.
Dr Bruce Perry, explains brainstem calming activities need to be:
- Relational (offered by a safe adult)
- Relevant (developmental rather than chronological age)
- Repetitive (patterned)
- Rewarding (pleasurable)
- Rhythmic (resonant with neural pathways)
- Respectful (of the child and family)
Examples of these activities include walking, running, dancing, drumming, singing, humming, tapping, colouring, deep breathing, movement, music, yoga, qigong, mindfulness and laughing.
When we return to school in September, many of our children are likely to be sensitised to people and their environment. Their brains are more likely to swing between fight, flight, freeze and collapse, spending more time in their survival brain and less time in their learning brain. In order to learn our children need to feel safe and calm, it is therefore crucial to embed brainstem calmers proactively into the school day.
Lynn Miles is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Teesside University and leads on their innovate MA Education (Trauma-Informed Practice) and the new Postgraduate Certificate in Trauma-Informed Learning and Teaching which is available for educators of children and young people across all settings. For an informal chat about these courses please contact Lynn Miles at L.Miles@tees.ac.uk.
The trauma team in Teesside University’s Department of Education and Social Work also offer CPD and short courses, both face-to-face and online, and are available for consultancy work. For further details please contact: business@tees.ac.uk / telephone 01642 384068.