As more cases of violence continue to rise, the education sector is increasingly worried on the fear and trauma it may cause school children. Houston Elementary in Northeast Washington and other schools are now teaching their students the mindfulness practice as well as other therapies to help them cope with trauma and daily stress.
According to MiCBT Institute, mindfulness is focusing on one's present state of body and mind with a "non-jugmental, non-reactive, and accepting attitude." People who practice mindfulness are able to manage stress, anxiety, depression and trauma through experiencing daily events in a manner that is more impersonal and more detachable.
Just last March, NBC Washington reported the shooting of a 15-year-old boy in a Metro station by a 17-year-old gunman. The 15-year-old, Davonte Washington, did not survive the gunshot while Maurice Bellamy, the suspect, was charged of second-degree murder as an adult.
The said crime and other recent cases of violence caused trauma and stress among residents of Houston, as per The Washington Post. Lives of innoncent children are being affected, especially their school performance which propelled the authorities' aim to help them through teaching mindfulness and other therapeutic practices.
According to American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, everything humans experience cause changes to the brain. Current research proves that childhood experiences leave a stronger impact on a developing brain than later experiences. Studies explain that a child's brain develops in accordance to the environment it is raised in. The brain reflects the presence of threat, fear and trauma in the environment by altering neural systems including the stress and fear response.
Recognizing the impacts of violence that has beset Houston, Principal Rembert Seaward commissioned the help of Turnaround for Children last year. Turnaround for Children makes schools more sensitive and responsive to its young students who are experiencing trauma and stress (via The Washington Post).
Principal Seaward gave the said organization a list of 34 students who appear to have acute mental health needs. Meeting after another, Turnaround for Children is now helping achieve Seaward's goal by outsourcing a mental health provider, an instructional coach to train school educators about toxic stress and an additional social worker who is currently in charge of 20 families
Teachers are taught how to maintain a calm classroom that would consequently help students to relax. Meanwhile, the school's social worker, Darryl Webster, provides grief and trauma counseling sessions for the school children, helping them through play therapy and meditation including the mindfulness practice (via The Washington Post).
As per Ed Source, California schools including districts Humboldt, Richmond, Santa Cruz, Aptos, and San Francisco are training teachers to use a "trauma-informed" and "trauma-sensitive approach" in order to manage students experiencing trauma and stress in the classroom. Meanwhile, Boston Public Schools reported last April that a federal grant amounting to $1.6 million would be used to put into 10 public schools a trauma specialist that would help students cope with trauma and stress.
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