Trauma Sensitivity During the IEP Process
Written by the FCSN Recruitment, Training and Support team with Susan Cole from Mass. Advocates for Children
Many kids who have had adverse childhood experiences suffer with a neurology that makes it difficult to learn in a typical way. They may also be struggling to do the right thing socially due to additional emotional regulation needs.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ensures that all students who have emotional or social disabilities have the right to an individualized education plan (IEP) that helps them reach their academic potential so that they can live productive, independent adult lives. The following short articles, demonstrate ways in which the IEP process can be made sensitive to complex childhood trauma issues.
Sharing Information With Professionals
It is important that professionals working with children get a thorough history of traumatic events that may have occurred to the child. Children can spend 6-8 hours of their day with school providers – almost 50% of their waking day. A trauma history also provides clues to gaps in a child’s skill development and can help caretakers support the child’s recovery. Schools are not likely to gather information on a child’s trauma history as part of their standardized protocol.
Without a thorough social history of the child, including information about a child’s trauma triggers, cues, and anniversary dates, school staff may not recognize the reasons behind challenging behavior. They may spend time addressing the behavioral consequences of trauma rather than their root causes. Building social coping skills, essential to the continued neurodevelopment of traumatized children, is overlooked. Teachers and others in schools need to gain a better understanding of child trauma and work collaboratively to facilitate better academic and non-academic services.
Professionals working with students in the custody of the state need to tread carefully down this path: confidentiality is paramount, and social workers do not readily share this information. Sharing this type of information can make children feel vulnerable and stigmatized. Also, the “trauma story,” if not recounted with skilled clinicians, can cause retraumatization for some children. So what can be done? Department of Children and Families (DCF) social workers should share enough information with the IEP Team to indicate that trauma may be a contributing cause of learning or behavioral difficulties while avoiding unnecessary details. Professionals should always discuss the issue with the student, if it is age appropriate to do so.
Balancing accountability with compassion is an underlying theme for teaching children with trauma histories. When disciplinary approaches don’t work time after time for certain students, schools should look at a trauma-sensitive evaluation tool to determine whether trauma. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, one of the most common measures is the Child Behavior Checklist for Children. No advanced training is necessary to administer this measure, making it practical for schools.
Trauma-Sensitive IEP Evaluations
When children are referred for initial special education evaluations, it is important to consider whether complex childhood trauma is involved. So many issues can be related: aggression, defiance, withdrawal, hyperactivity, lack of motivation, impulsiveness, dramatic mood shifts, and even language delays. How does an IEP Team decide that trauma is playing a role, and conduct a proper evaluation?
School evaluations should address the role trauma may play in learning, behavior, and social/emotional growth. If the role of trauma has already been identified (as is the case for many students in the custody of the Department of Children and Families), then the evaluators should proceed with complex childhood symptomology in mind. What about the “gray area” where the Team is not unsure about the trauma history? A “trauma” evaluation can be made. This kind of clinically-oriented assessment looks to pinpoint the source and type of the trauma (physical, sexual, emotional).
In contrast, a trauma-sensitive evaluation tries to determine whether or not there is a component of trauma to the difficulties the child is experiencing at school. If the Team is determining special education eligibility of a student with a trauma history, an Emotional Impairment is commonly agreed upon as the type of disability. Several evaluations can be useful, but the focus should be on psychology, speech and language, functional behavior, and occupational therapy assessments.
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Psychological Evaluation: It is helpful to refer a traumatized child (or one suspected as such) to a mental health professional (preferably, with a Ph.D.) who has knowledge about the impact of trauma on academic and non-academic progress. To protect the confidentiality of the student, the details of the trauma are far less important to a school than the child’s functioning. Specific ways to help the student modulate trauma responses, and accommodations to help the child feel safe at school should be included in the evaluation report.
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Speech and Language Evaluations: An appropriate evaluation examines the linguistic, pragmatic, and narrative aspects of language. Many children with complex trauma are challenged by receptive and expressive language delays, age-appropriate perspective taking, and social cueing.
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Functional Behavioral Assessments (FBAs): Continued behavioral challenges require specific behavior plans to ensure academic and non-academic success. An FBA collects information about the antecedents and consequences to the student’s episodes of concerning behaviors. In addition to an FBA, classroom environments must be carefully assessed to determine environmental factors that could be contributing to a child’s behavioral issues.
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Occupational Therapy Evaluations: In addition to developmental delays in fine motor skills that may be observed, OT evaluations can assess accommodations and modifications that will produce a calm and nurturing learning environment for a child.
Children with histories of complex childhood trauma can display “comorbid” issues and diagnoses. An understanding of trauma’s impact on learning and behavior help educators and other school staff build a successful IEP.
Trauma-Sensitive Team Meetings
Recent studies on resiliency in children, especially those that have faced overwhelming life experiences, focus on Four Domains for Success: Relationships, Self-Regulation, Academic Success, and Physical Health and Safety. IEP Team Meetings can focus on supporting children in these four domains to ensure academic success and non-academic achievement.
Children with involved family, and caring teachers and community have far less stress following severe trauma. The ability to “use” this support system, however, depends on the child’s ability to connect with and relate to other people. The IEP Team can center social/emotional goals to develop peer supports and meaningful teacher-student relationships. Without adequate support, children may regress, develop dysfunctional styles of coping, and have symptoms such as impulsivity, aggression, inattention, and depression.
Self-regulation describes the ability of a child to “put the brakes on” in times of emotional stress. Traumatized children view their world as dangerous and unpredictable and they are prepared to react, usually in inappropriate (and possibly unsafe) ways. The team can consider including Functional Behavioral Assessments and ways to build a child’s coping strategies in an IEP.
Academic success can be an island of competency – one place where children can feel good about themselves. There is no better way to build self-esteem then to hear the words “Great job” from a teacher every day.
Finally, a safe and supportive school environment ensures the physical and mental well-being of a child. There is much discussion in the media about changing school ecology or culture to be more nurturing and engaging for all children. This is especially true of children who have had difficult early childhood experiences. Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports should be included in the accommodations for a student with a history of trauma.
So, what about changing the “culture” of the IEP Team Meeting? Putting a trauma lens on discussions about a child with social/emotional disabilities and challenging behaviors, can change the temperament of an IEP Meeting. Engendering a feeling of empathy for the child (and their family), many of whom are feeling overwhelmed with community interventions and provider services can go a long way towards understanding their needs. A trauma-sensitive approach can often explain why behaviors occur or why academic success (or effective progress) seems hard to achieve.
Imagine a Team brainstorming ways to make a student competent in the above-mentioned four domains (Relationships, Self-Regulation, Academic Success and Physical Health and Safety) and the sky’s the limit! Not just in the classroom, but throughout the school, even before and after school. Because trauma for these kids is pervasive; the symptoms don’t go away after the school bell rings. They need Team support all day, every day and an IEP is a good method to formalize that support.
Trauma-Sensitive IEPs
Stronger relationships with peers or caring adults provides a supportive learning environment for learning that is so necessary for children with trauma. They may see friendships or nurturance as a trap, something that won’t last, and best to be avoided lest they be emotionally dangerous. In order to overcome these fears and anxieties, the child must learn new ways to approach relationships especially with authority figures.
In the Massachusetts IEP form, there is a section for “Other Educational Needs” allows an IEP Team to take a look at the wider impact of a disability on non-academic moments. This includes extra-curricular activities, a child’s communication skills, and behavior at school. These are all areas where children interact with other children (recess, lunchroom, hallways) as well as adults. They are also the areas that are most confusing and least successful for traumatized children. But they could also be used as platforms to learn new skills and new ways of looking at the world as less than terrifying.
Social/Emotional goal writing should be an opportunity for an IEP Team to get creative. How about making sure Janie has a safe person to ask for help? Is it the school nurse, a favorite teacher or administrator, a trusted friend, or maybe an older sibling? Can she have access to this person in times of uncertainty? Can this person give her guidance and assurance that recess and lunchtime can be fun?
The lack of self-regulation is most typically the response of a traumatized child to a confusing or potentially unsafe situation as seen through their trauma lens. It follows that if a child is feeling safe, she will be able to muster the neurological control to stay regulated and do the right thing. If an adult senses that a child is becoming dysregulated, then the adult has the responsibility to make sure that the child can find safe haven; create a place where she truly wants to be (not a “time out” or seclusion room). Most times this is a place that is sensorially soothing with some minimum activity, like taking a walk outside with a trusted mentor. For example, the social/emotional goal of the child learning to identify their physiological response to stress AND calming activities such as a walk, could allow the student to focus on academics rather than taking up brain time on stress and anxiety. Being emotionally healthy leads to academic success.
For those kids with the invisible disability of having suffered complex childhood trauma, the IEP process can give them a chance to learn the skills necessary to achieve a life of productivity and independent living.