Benefits of Our School Support​

Students
  • The stigma that continues to surround mental health and mental-health treatment is a major factor in young people's, and parents' reluctance to access mental=health care (US Dept. of Education, 2021).
  • Students therefore benefit from being in an environment where their mental health challenges are not seen punitively and where mental-health support is framed as a positive. ​EAP offers training on cultivating trauma-sensitive environments that help foster a sense of belonging in youth.
  • There has been recent research on the experiences--named Positive Childhood Experiences--that help mitigate the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Among the 10 factors are feeling like they belong in high school, feeling like their friends support them, and having at least 2 non-caregiver adults who take a genuine interest in them (Bethell et. al., 2019).
  • Expressive Arts Place offers tools to help students maintain healthy relationships and to help students develop relationships with a caring adult.​

Teachers
  • Secondary trauma is something that affects everyone who works in service of others, and schools are no exception. Research has shown that increases in teacher STS correlates to diminished emotional support for students and more conflict in relationships with students (US Dept. of Education, 2021), and that as teachers become more trauma-informed, levels of STS decrease (Ormiston et. al., 2022). 
  • EAP's training program helps teachers identify the signs of secondary trauma and offers the opportunity to address them using the expressive therapies.​ ​
  • Arts-based education helps not only students, but teachers: Anderson et. al (2021) found that as teachers in their study experienced an increased confidence in their creative abilities and an increased ability to use creative approaches in the classroom, their emotional-wellbeing and secondary traumatic stress improved.
  • Expressive Arts Place infuses the arts into our training program, offering an opportunity to engage with important material in a unique, engaging way. 

​School Administrators
  • Administrators benefit from training and development in creating trauma-sensitive environments for teachers and students.
  • As many of the factors that inhibit teachers' abilities to use creative approaches in the classroom lie beyond their individual capacity (ie. are more structural), administrators can help determine school policies that are detrimental to student well-being and make changes to policies that are more supportive. ​
  • An increase in mental-health literacy would help administrators make more informed decisions on where to allocate resources within their schools.
  • Administrators are well-positioned to advocate for their employees on an institutional level. Greater mental-health literacy would help administrators be better able to advocate for staff and students and influence policy.
Sources

Anderson, et al. (2021). Generating Buoyancy in a Sea of Uncertainty: Teachers Creativity and Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology 11, 1-17.
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Bethell C, Jones J, Gombojav N, Linkenbach J, Sege R. Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental and Relational Health in a Statewide Sample: Associations Across Adverse Childhood Experiences Levels. JAMA Pediatr. 2019:e193007.

Ormiston, et. al. (2019). A Systematic Review of Secondary Traumatic Stress and Compassion Fatigue in Teachers. School Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-022-09525-2
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U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Supporting Child and Student Social, Emotional, Behavioral, and Mental Health Needs, Washington, DC, 2021.