For some students, school is not just a place of learning and growth but also a refuge from abuse.
Data suggest that, on average, every classroom has at least one student affected by trauma. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, close to 40 percent of students in the U.S. have been exposed to some form of traumatic stressor in their lives, with sexual assault, physical assault, and witnessing domestic violence being the three most prevalent.
These types of stressors, known as complex trauma, have the added wound of being perpetrated by a person with whom the child or teen has an ongoing relationship. The very people who are supposed to support and protect are those who wound and abuse. This leads to continuing states of grief, loss, abandonment, and neglect as well as persistent anxiety, fear, and depression—all at a time when the brain is in crucial stages of development.
[For more on this story by LEA WATERS, TOM BRUNZELL, go to https://greatergood.berkeley.e...s_affected_by_trauma]
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