All SEL should be trauma-informed

Abstract

Critics and supporters have expressed concern that social-emotional learning (SEL) has not been adapted to children suffering from trauma. While SEL has been identified as a mechanism through which trauma-informed schools can be created, this does not make SEL implementation, in and of itself, trauma-informed. Erica Pawlo, Ava Lorenzo, Brian Eichert, and Maurice J. Elias explain why calls for trauma-informed SEL are, in fact, calls for all SEL to be trauma-informed. They discuss how a trauma-informed approach to SEL is related to SEL’s emphasis on school climate, the need to build infrastructure for SEL learning, and the role of emotions in SEL instruction.

It’s Not All or Nothing: Exploring the Impact of a Social-Emotional and Character Development Intervention in the Middle Grades

“…Similarly, exposure to ACEs, regardless of SES, may not necessarily lead a child to experience trauma, though the risk for these factors to occur simultaneously is much higher than for children who are not raised in low-SES environments or ACEs (Blodgett & Lanigan, 2018;Evans, 2004). As Pawlo et al (2019) noted, the ultimate benefit for students will come from political action to reduce the structural inequities of low-income and high-risk environments; meanwhile, it is wise to assume that students in such environments will need strong, continuous SECD interventions and highly positive teacher-student relationships to counteract the ACEs these youths experience while waiting for these essential changes to happen.…”

“…While the needs of many disadvantaged urban students for SECD-related programming is great, it does not guarantee that those charged with delivering those programs will do so effectively (Pawlo, Lorenzo, Eichert, & Elias, 2019). So while participation in SECD programming offers numerous benefits to youths, participation alone does not guarantee that the program's effects will be enduring.…”

Muddy sensemaking: Making sense of socio-emotional skills amidst a vague policy context

“…The CASEL framework had two main limitations in the study. First, a few participants identified issues not explicitly acknowledged or described in the CASEL framework: the importance of morality in decision-making; embracement and development of African American and Latinx students' cultural capital; and the role of trauma in relation to the five skills (Kennedy, 2019;Osher, Pamela, Berg, Steyer & Rose, 2017;Pawlo, Lorenzo, Eichert & Elias, 2019. Second, while the framework described five skills and provided the practitioners greater conceptual clarity, it did not provide much guidance about how to promote the five skills, especially when issues such as ethnoracial tension or trauma arose (Baker & Clark, 2017;Manning-Oulette & Beatty, 2019).…”

“…Additionally, CASEL has not yet fully included trauma-informed ideas into the framework (CASEL, n.d.a). A growing body of literature discusses the importance of making all SEL frameworks trauma-informed because these frameworks are adopted across all contexts and students with trauma are learning across all different contexts (Kennedy, 2019;Osher et al, 2017;Pawlo et al, 2019).…”

Indiana Social-Emotional Learning Competencies: A Neurodevelopmental, Culturally Responsive Framework

“…Specifically, within the sensory-motor integration competency, educational neuroscience seeks to raise awareness of how biological factors play an important role in accounting for differences in learning ability between individuals, not only environmental (Royal Society, 2011). Within trauma-responsive practices, when a student experiences chronic stress or fear, the survival part of the brain is activated, resulting in alerting the limbic system and the fight/flight/freeze response; the survival brain's activation decreases functioning of other brain areas responsible for information processing, planning, and other executive functions (Van der Kolk, 2014;Perry, 2017;Pawlo, Lorenzo, Eichert, & Ellis, 2019). Students are unable to learn new information when they continuously operate in a fear response state because the brain, when affected by trauma or chronic stress, is significantly limited in its capacity to receive, integrate, and store new information; the toxic levels of stress hormones can interrupt typical physical and mental development and even change the brain's architecture (Sacks, & Murphey, 2018).…”