Abstract
This chapter describes how resilience is fostered in an elementary school whose student population has multiple risk factors and has experienced a high degree of trauma. As Oklahoma, Payne County, and the school district have recently become engaged and educated about adverse childhood experiences and resilience, they are moving towards garnering support systems, developing programs, and enacting a new way of seeing students through a trauma-informed lens that emphasizes the importance of relationships and emotional regulation. Here we propose and illustrate a two-pronged approach to building resilience at both the school and child level, one that focuses on the school climate and one that focuses on skill building among the students.
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Questions for Thought and Discussion
Questions for Thought and Discussion
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1.
What does it mean for a school to be resilient? Think of examples of schools that have been in the news after suffering trauma. What signs of resilience (or the lack thereof) do you see in those schools?
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If a principal wanted to change the emotional climate of the school, how might s/he go about it? Where should the principal begin? Why? What might be some obstacles to this change, and how could the principal overcome them?
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3.
Discuss the pros and cons of using a non-punitive discipline approach in an elementary school. Could this work in a junior high or high school? Why or why not?
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How could a school counselor approach a classroom teacher who was not buying into the school’s philosophy?
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Many schools cannot afford a full-time or even part-time guidance counselor. How could such a school still implement the ideas shared in this chapter?
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Schaecher, M.H., Harrist, A.W. (2021). Schools as Resilient Communities Building Resilience in Children. In: Stout, M., Harrist, A.W. (eds) Building Community and Family Resilience. Emerging Issues in Family and Individual Resilience. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49799-6_6
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