Building Resiliency. How to create trauma-informed learning communities and environments where students can thrive

In almost every classroom there are a few students who seem to take up a lot of your energy and often distract other students from learning. Gaining tools to understand their behavior and help them join the learning community helps each of these students, you, and your entire class. This one-day workshop will offer you tools and opportunities to practice a trauma-informed approach to leading your classroom. Together we will lay the groundwork for an ongoing exploration to bring trauma informed work into your classroom and perhaps your school. You will

• get to know how to strengthen your own self-regulation and co-regulation skills
• gain an understanding of how the brain responds to trauma and human connection
• learn how to apply a trauma-responsive lens to classroom challenges and enhance your “radar” about trauma and attachment
• explore how to understand behavior as communication and how to respond to challenging behavior
• practice tools to create a classroom and school environment where students feel connected and encouraged
• gain resources and learn skills that will make an immediate difference in your classroom and school

The workshop will be held in English, but Jody understands German very well.

About Dr. Jody McVittie: Jody McVittie, MD, is the co-founder of Sound Discipline (now BELONG Partners), a non-profit working with schools, youth programs and parenting educators to teach tools to foster dignity, respect, and equity in our communities. She received her medical degree from Case Western University and completed a family medicine residency and fellowship before returning to the shifting her focus to broader community issues that impact health outcomes including parenting, education, trauma and the impact of intra-family violence.

Now retired, she is exploring the impact of individual, ancestral, and collective trauma on each of us and the systems that we navigate daily – exploring the tools and skills needed to unwind ourselves from our tangled pasts.