FAO: teachers and SENCOs
So far this term our SEN & Inclusion team have delivered several training sessions around Lego, Nurture support, De-escalation strategies and Boxall profile training. Training is also available for lunchtime supervisors, on ADHD and Attachment and Trauma. The team also support schools in reviewing their behaviour policies and practice. If you’re interested in accessing any of the above, please do get in touch. The team are working increasingly with children who have or are experiencing trauma, so this term’s focus piece is on Early Childhood Trauma.
“Psychological trauma is when we talk about situations or events that we find traumatic, early trauma refers to negative experiences that happen to young children before the age of 10 years (Glaser,2006)”.
Children may not be able to verbalise what is happening, understand why or how they are affected by trauma. Everyone reacts differently; we must not assume that a child that hasn’t reacted isn’t adversely affected by trauma. Traumatic experiences could be domestic abuse, sexual or physical abuse, accidents, medical procedures, war, death, divorce, the list is not exhaustive. The Mind website (www. mind.org.uk) suggests that Trauma can include events where you feel unsupported, unsafe, invalidated, abandoned, rejected, humiliated, under threat, trapped or frightened.
Trauma can impact children of any age - even very young babies. Trauma can alter children’s sensory reactions to stimuli, they can have heightened responses such as sensory defensiveness to touch, proximity, they may be hypervigilant and always on the lookout for danger.
‘Danger’ for children and young people could be a new adult in class, new child or even a new type of learning such as a different way of calculating a maths problem. They are in a constant state of heightened anxiety and react badly (over the top behaviour) to even little stressors in life.
Trauma can have impact on how the developing child regulates their emotions; they may be in fear and mistrust adults. Their behaviour may be complex, difficult to understand or to unpick the function of their negative, often defensive behaviour. They may have nightmares or recurring images of the traumatic event (s). Everything and everyone are interpreted as negative, to be distrusted unless proven otherwise. These children may push the teacher to their limits to ‘test’ out how they will respond.
ACE’s (Adverse Traumatic Experiences) are the experience of a prolonged insecure attachment whatever the cause and has long been suspected of producing invisible damage. ACEs are conditions that can ‘harm social, cognitive, and emotional functioning and dramatically upset the safe, nurturing environments that children need to thrive’ (ACE Awareness Foundation).
New methods of measurement in neuropsychology and neurobiology have been able to quantify this damage in terms of brain growth and activity.
“In short, we know that parental rejection, abuse and neglect can cause grievous developmental harm, but also grievous bodily harm, it can impact on the physical growth as well as mental development.” (Cameron & Maginn, 2008: 1152)
“There is a strong evidence base that teacher-pupil relationships are key to good pupil behaviour and that these relationships can have a positive effect on pupils’ effort and academic attainment.” (Durrington Research. 2019).
“Research into genetics have suggested that “neglect from a mother’s own childhood seems to leave behind a neural signature in her baby that may predispose the infant to more readily detect threat in the environment almost from birth. Our findings highlight the importance of emotional support early in life, even for subsequent generations.”(Hendrix. 2000)
Children who have experienced Trauma will need trusting, understanding and patient adults in school and a dedicated key adult. Adults will need to recognise that anxiety is present and understand strategies that work with the individual. Consistent approaches and effective behaviour management. Allow a safe space to voice concerns. Adults will need to model the behaviour and language consistently.
If you’d like to know more about how our SEN & Inclusion team can support pupils affected by trauma, please