Our journey to becoming trauma informed…

Happy weekend!

This week we’re taking the opportunity to share the journey we are undertaking with Spring Brook Academy Lower School and Spring Brook Academy Upper School in further enhancing how we support the social, emotional and mental health needs of our young people by becoming trauma informed.

Trauma can occur in a variety of ways throughout a young person’s life, at home, within peer groups, within the community and the impact of this can be lifelong.

For many of our young people, school can become a traumatic experience if their experience of it is not fully accepted or understood. The New Bridge Multi Academy Trust is fortunate that it now has three specialist SEMH schools that cover all the key stages in a young person’s education journey and as such, together we can shape the young person’s experience of education and the narrative of who they are and what they can achieve, from early childhood and all the through into adolescence and into adulthood.

That journey began in February and continued in early September when on the staff training days, the staff members of all three schools were able to come together for the first time in what felt like, with the restrictions that have been in place, an eternity.

This journey is being undertaken with Beyond Psychology, a social enterprise based in Rochdale led by clinical psychologists, Dr Kirsty Hughes and Dr Louise Mansell.

Since then, and with the support of the Beyond Psychology Team, we have developed a Trauma Informed Lead Team, consisting of teachers, teaching assistants, intervention workers, middle and senior leaders from all three of our schools.

This team is now working together to form and embed a consistent ethos, language and approach throughout a young person’s journey with us. In September, the Lead Team agreed a vision, to be achieved in within the next 18 months based on the following principles:

· To have embedded an ethos and understanding of behaviour as communication

· To have an empowered, connected staff team who model the trauma informed approach

· To have a nurturing consistent trauma informed approach across our three schools

· To have a culture of collaboration with young people and their families

These principles are in turn informed by the Pyramid of Need, which demonstrates that in order for a person to effectively and safely explore trauma, or mourn losses, a foundation of safety, care, empathy, self-esteem and identity must be in place. This is our aim for all our young people.

We look forward to sharing the progress of our journey with you over the next 18 months.

Have a great weekend!

Lee Clough

Engagement Pathway Co-ordinator

Springboard Project