The Potential for Teacher‐Student Relationships and the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model to Mitigate Adverse Childhood Experiences

Abstract

BACKGROUND Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with poorer health and educational outcomes. With over 20% of children experiencing multiple ACEs, interventions must target protective factors to improve outcomes among these students. Teacher‐student relationships (TSRs) integrated with the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) are one promising approach to building resilience to overcome ACEs. METHODS A narrative literature review was conducted on ACEs, resilience, TSRs, and the WSCC model to explore the evidence and potential of TSR interventions integrated within the WSCC model to build resilience in students experiencing ACEs. RESULTS Supportive adult relationships are one of the strongest protective factors against ACEs. TSR interventions have improved student and relationship outcomes. Few studies have explored the relationship between TSRs and ACEs or TSR ACEs interventions. The WSCC model provides opportunities to integrate TSRs and other protective factors into a schoolwide health model to build resilience. CONCLUSIONS TSRs and the WSCC model are promising approaches to target protective factors to mitigate ACEs. Research is needed to further establish TSRs as a protective factor, explore TSR ACEs interventions, and determine best practices for integrating TSRs and resilience in the WSCC model.

Resilience in Teachers: Validation of the Spanish Version of the CD-RISC10© Scale in Early Childhood, Primary and Special Education Teachers

“…Thus, resilience in teachers has a double aspect [ 33 ]. On the one hand, as resilient professionals, the promotion of resilience in students, influencing through the teacher’s educational practices, both in prevention (working with students to strengthen individual qualities of resilience, providing support and affection and promoting networking by involving families) as well as in intervention, when the teacher works with students who are facing an adverse situation of any kind, offering them guidelines and coping strategies and showing the importance of the environment, becoming a tutor or guide for them [ 34 , 35 , 36 ]. This strengthening of resilience reduces the likelihood of the emergence of problems associated with physical and mental health, as well as school dropout [ 37 ].…”

A case study addressing trauma needs during COVID-19 remote learning from an ecological systems theory framework

“…The research problem addressed in this study was the negative impact of trauma on student learning outcomes, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several articles emphasized the need for trauma informed practices and connections in the classroom with the increase of trauma among students, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic [ 6 , 7 , 20 , 21 ]. A study exploring needs of students with past trauma in the classroom, acknowledges that this is becoming the daily undertaking of teachers and identifies required teacher efficacy in the areas of social emotional learning to support these at-risk students [ 22 ].…”

“…It has also been found that building relationships with students requires a relational perspective of interpersonal communication between teacher and student, rather than self-reflection by teachers, and that this perspective can be the focus of any teacher [ 23 ]. Yet, research shows that teachers who prioritize building relationships with their students and teaching them social emotional skills find the work challenging without the availability of trauma-informed trainings [ 20 ]. While there is some research addressing the need for bonding activities in the classroom that help build teacher student relationships during COVID-19 [ 20 , 22 , 23 ], they do not specifically address how to do these relationship building activities in online classrooms, such as the use of community circles and mindfulness.…”

“…Yet, research shows that teachers who prioritize building relationships with their students and teaching them social emotional skills find the work challenging without the availability of trauma-informed trainings [ 20 ]. While there is some research addressing the need for bonding activities in the classroom that help build teacher student relationships during COVID-19 [ 20 , 22 , 23 ], they do not specifically address how to do these relationship building activities in online classrooms, such as the use of community circles and mindfulness. This study informs teachers about community circles and mindfulness to build teacher-student relationships and attempted to change teacher perceptions of the possibilities of their use to help alleviate trauma symptoms in the online classroom.…”

“…While all layers of EST define the student, the focus of this study was on the microsystem, exosystem, and chronosystem. These layers of EST were chosen to focus on because research indicated that teacher-student relationships were important in the student learning process, particularly for students who experienced trauma [ 20 , 22 , 27 , 35 , 36 ]. It was also obvious that there were traumatic impacts that can interfere with student learning during COVID-19 [ 5 , 15 ].…”