Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 61
schools, HEARTS provides on-site psychotherapy
and mental health consultation three days per week.
In surveys, school staff at these schools report a 57%
increase in their knowledge about trauma and its
effects on children, and a 64% increase in their use
of trauma-sensitive classroom school practices. At
El Dorado Elementary School, where HEARTS has
been in operation for 4 years and where the school
consistently tracked office discipline referral data,
staff reported a 32% decrease in such referrals and a
42% decrease in violent student incidents after the
first year of HEARTS implementation.
School staff at target sites have told HEARTS
that the training and support has changed their
perspective from “these are problem children” to
“these are scared and hurt children.” A principal at
one of the HEARTS’ schools stated:
[This] has shifted the way we discipline
students at the school. We are a lot more
empathetic. We take more time to allow kids
to cool off, to have those meltdowns and
then come back without being suspended or
sent home. Getting at that Cradle to Prison
pipeline, we’re not reproducing the same
model of ‘oh, you’re out of here,’ ostracizing
kids and sending them home for things that
they may feel are out of their control.
To learn more about trauma sensitive schools and
read an interview with HEARTS Project leaders, visit
www.FixSchoolDiscipline.org
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