Adrian Rogers, a reporter for the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, WA, did a great job in this story -- Taking on Trauma -- about how elementary schools in Spokane have integrated trauma-informed practices.
Otis Orchards Elementary School, in the East Valley School District, is one of six elementaries in the Spokane area where staff members are using “trauma-based” techniques to work with students whose personal lives threaten not only their academic success but their overall well-being. Like local public health workers, they’re acknowledging the relatively high rates of child abuse and other adverse childhood experiences suffered by Spokane County residents and striving to counteract the effects that researchers have found follow kids into adulthood.
I'll be going up there next week to do a story, too. It's part of a series of articles I'm doing about how schools are moving from a punitive to a compassionate approach to school discipline. (Of course, when they do so, the change is about so much more than school discipline.) The story I'll be doing will focus more on the nuts and bolts of how the schools incorporated the changes, the challenges they faced, and how they're making the changes sustainable.
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