Faculty of Education - Research Publications

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    Teacher Perspectives When Learning Trauma-Informed Practice Pedagogies: Stories of Meaning Making at Work
    Brunzell, T ; Waters, L ; Stokes, H (FRONTIERS MEDIA SA, 2022-06-17)
    This qualitative study focused upon ways teachers make meaning when working with students who are affected by trauma. An 11-month longitudinal design was used to explore teachers’ perspectives (N = 18 teachers) as they reflected upon the impacts of trauma within their classrooms and as they learned about trauma-informed practice strategies. Data from group interviews and participant journals were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results emerged that suggested common pathways in the ways teacher perspectives evolved; and these pathways were then analyzed in light of the meaningful work literatures to further suggest how work became more meaningful to these teachers when learning trauma-informed practice strategies. Teachers fostered a greater sense of meaning at work via two pathways: first by increasing their own wellbeing via personal use of trauma-informed strategies; then second, by incorporating trauma-informed strategies into their pedagogy to more effectively engage their students with learning. Increasing meaningful work for teachers who are working with trauma-affected students has promising implications for teacher professional development and workforce sustainability in schools experiencing high rates of teacher turnover and burnout as a result of teacher exposure to adverse student behavior.
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    Shifting Teacher Practice in Trauma-Affected Classrooms: Practice Pedagogy Strategies Within a Trauma-Informed Positive Education Model
    Brunzell, T ; Stokes, H ; Waters, L (SPRINGER, 2019-09)
    This study explored how primary and secondary school teachers changed their practice pedagogy as they underwent training in trauma-informed positive education (Brunzell et al., Contemp School Psychol 20:63–83, 2016b. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-015-0070-x). TIPE integrates teaching strategies from two practice paradigms: trauma-informed education and positive education in order to educate vulnerable students who struggle in school due to trauma histories from abuse, neglect and/or violence. Over the course of 1 year, teachers (N = 18) co-designed and/or adapted TIPE through an iterative procedure of appreciative inquiry participatory action research. The aim was to strengthen teacher capacities in order to assist their students to overcome classroom-based adversity and to bolster their learning. This study privileged teachers’ phenomenological experience of TIPE by investigating the experiential aspects of planning for and implementing curriculum and classroom management. Two emergent themes were found in the qualitative data: (1) increasing relational capacity and (2) increasing psychological resources. These results were analysed through contemporary frames of teacher practice, which revision the purpose of teacher practice as a set of practice challenges to better assist teachers in educating their vulnerable student cohorts.
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    Leading trauma informed schools
    Stokes, H ; Brunzell, T (Australian Council for Educational Leaders, 2020)
    This article will discuss what it means for leaders in schools often serving communities contending with educational inequity in which many of the students are identified as trauma-affected and how both leaders and schools can move from being trauma-affected to trauma-aware. Leaders and teachers often interpret resistant student behaviour as a ‘choice’ the student is making to assert themselves in the classroom. However, trauma-aware perspectives prompt both leaders and teachers to reflect on the impacts of trauma on learning, the underlying causes of student behaviour, and then to embed whole-school strategies to support the learning and growth of their students. We will draw on a body of work we have developed and researched over the last five years. From the evidence based on the practice delivery of trauma-informed practice in schools (Stokes & Farrelly, 2019; Stokes et al., 2019; Stokes & Turnbull, 2016), we articulate the issues facing leaders and teachers; and then draw together key strategies that leaders can implement to move their school from being trauma-affected to trauma-aware
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    Trauma-Informed Teacher Wellbeing: Teacher Reflections within Trauma-Informed Positive Education
    Brunzell, T ; Waters, L ; Stokes, H (EDITH COWAN UNIV, 2021-05)
    For the last 15 years, teacher wellbeing has been a priority area of exploration within education and positive psychology literatures. However, increasing teacher wellbeing for those who educate students impacted by trauma has yet to be comprehensively explored despite repeated exposure of teachers to child trauma and their experiences of associated negative effects such as secondary traumatic stress, vicarious traumatisation, compassion fatigue and burnout. This study follows teachers’ understandings and reflections upon their own wellbeing after learning the literatures supporting trauma-informed positive education. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used as the methodological approach to represent teachers (N = 18) in order to privilege the language, voices and experiences of participants. Results yielded a new set of domains of trauma-informed teacher wellbeing to assist teachers to increase their own wellbeing when working with students. The likely upsurge in students and teachers across the world experiencing trauma symptoms (primary and vicarious) arising from the COVID-19 global pandemic makes this research timely and relevant.