Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 60

1. Welcoming parents of students with behavioral
health challenges to participate as equals in
the planning and evaluation of programs and
services.
2. Creating professional developmental trainings
that respect and take into account ethnic and
cultural diversity.
3. Ensuring that school personnel are trained and
actively engaged respectfully and supportively
with students and families.48
To learn more about how to implement a behavioral
health framework that supports a Trauma Sensitive
School with step -by-step implementation ideas,
please visit www.FixSchoolDiscipline.org

HIGHLIGHT: THE UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO, CHILD
AND ADOLESCENT SERVICES, DEPT.
OF PSYCHIATRY, HEARTS (HEALTHY
ENVIRONMENTS AND RESPONSE TO
TRAUMA IN SCHOOLS) PROJECT
49

UCSF HEARTS is a multi-level school-based
prevention and intervention program for children
who have experienced trauma that aims to promote
school success for traumatized children and youth
by creating school environments that are more
trauma-sensitive and supportive of the needs of
these students. This project draws its model in part
from the flexible framework for trauma-sensitive
schools described in the section above, published by
Massachusetts Advocates for Children in the book
entitled, Helping Traumatized Children Learn: A
Report and Policy Agenda.50
HEARTS has implemented its multi-level program in
four San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD)
48 Id. at p. 3.
49 A collaboration between Child and Adolescent Services (CAS) at
UCSF-SFGH Department of Psychiatry and the UCSF Center of Excellence
in Women’s Health. This section adapted from “UCSF HEARTS”, Summary
of Accomplishments (June, 2012).
50 Helping Traumatized Children Learn, A Report and Policy Agenda,
Massachusetts Advocates for Children: Trauma and Learning Policy
Initiative In collaboration with Harvard Law School and the Task Force on
Children Affected by Domestic Violence (2005).

58

How we can fix school discipline

schools in the southeast sector of San Francisco:
El Dorado Elementary, Bret Hart Elementary, Paul
Revere School, and George Washington Carver
Elementary. These schools serve some of the most
under-resourced and chronically traumatized
neighborhoods in San Francisco. HEARTS provides
services within the three-tiered framework for
prevention and intervention that is similar to the
framework employed by PBIS:
1) primary prevention or “fostering the emotional
well being of all students through school-wide safe
and supportive environments,”51 e.g., classroom
presentations on coping with stress;
2) secondary prevention or “supports and services
that are preventive and enable schools to intervene
early to minimize escalation of identified behavioral
health symptoms and other barriers to school
success,”52 e.g., skills building groups for at-risk youth;
and
3) tertiary interventions or “intensive services
and schools’ participation in coordinated care
for the small number of students demonstrating
significant needs,”53 e.g., trauma-informed therapeutic
interventions around post-trauma difficulties.
A key ingredient of the HEARTS program is
that it addresses the effects of trauma not only at
the student level, but also at the adult caregiver
level, and at the system level (i.e., school climate,
procedures, and policies). The HEARTS team
provides critical support and training to parents/
guardians through support groups and workshops,
and to school personnel through professional
development training, mental health consultation,
and wellness support that addresses burnout and
vicarious traumatization. Such training and support
to school staff helps to build capacity in school staff
and provide them with trauma-sensitive strategies
to address classroom behavioral difficulties, training
that educators typically do not receive in teacher
education coursework.
In partnership with SFUSD, the HEARTS mental
health practitioners have delivered more than 1800
hours of training and consultation to SFUSD and
trained 700 SFUSD staff and affiliates. In the target
51 The Behavioral Health and Public Schools Framework, Introduction to
the Framework, visit http://BPHS321.org, p. 1.
52 Id.
53 Id.