Trauma-informed schools provide benefit to students and families as they embrace restorative practices and social-emotional learning. These schools are trained to understand how traumatic stress affects neurological development and learning, and view misbehaviors as skill deficits. As a result, their responses are rooted in compassionate capacity building, rather than exclusionary discipline intended to maintain compliance. Lastly, these schools strive to have the resources needed to meet students’ social-emotional needs, including sufficient access to high-quality mental health providers. In short, these schools are models of institutions where you would want to send your child, regardless of their relationship with adverse childhood experiences.
Sadly, few schools in Memphis are certifiably trauma-informed. Yet, there is a growing local movement to change that. Shelby County Schools, as well as various charters, are working to educate school staff about the effect of ACEs and toxic stress. Some schools are already moving to the next step, using their new understandings to transform how they support students, particularly when it comes to discipline and building social-emotional skills.
As we prepare to close out 2018 and look back on our work during this year, we find much to celebrate. Our network of passionate staff, dedicated volunteers, engaged parents, and steadfast community leaders has had some significant achievements this year. Here are just a few: Our work is far from over; our staff and […]
We’ve written before about Memphis’ opportunity youth – the estimated 30,000 to 45,000 young people aged 16 to 24 who are not in school and are unemployed. On December 11, we hosted “The ABCs of Career and Technical Education” to examine the reasons behind such high numbers of youth disengagement and discuss existing and emerging programs that […]
Shelby County Schools has approximately more than fifty programs that cover 16 career tracks at schools throughout the district. The district is working to make more programs and resources available at more schools but, in the meantime, students can transfer to specific schools in order to enroll in a desired program. To enable more students to take […]
An audience member speaks at “The Great Debate: Exploring the Role of Charter Schools in Memphis” on Tuesday, November 13, 2018.
Simply put, the existence of charter schools allows families to have more high-quality options for educating their children and increases their ability to choose the best education option for each individual child. Each charter school has its own governing structure, which allows greater flexibility in developing effective approaches, policies, and practices that address academic and […]
