College student suicide is increasing but little research addresses it. We examine student-housing-staff responses to student suicide using meaning making, trauma theory, and trauma-informed counseling. The phenomenological study included 11 participants who experienced student suicide on campus. Student staff experienced trauma, guilt, and…

The United States is facing a crisis of college and university closures as we approach the demographic cliff. As a result, the expected number of four-year college closures is predicted to be substantial. This doctoral project offers a theoretical model (HERC Model) that provides tangible suggestions or recommendations for how to confront the…

Background: Caregivers play a crucial role in supporting trauma-affected foster children by offering emotional stability and comfort. Caregivers face significant emotional, practical and systemic challenges despite their critical contributions. Limited research explores their experiences in providing trauma-informed care, creating a gap in…

When facilitating group art therapy for young adult male inmates in prison, response art helped an art therapist to build therapeutic bonds and maintain self-care. Both artmaking in-session and post-session enabled the art therapist to traverse relational distance, nurture trust, and create social bonds in the group. By reflecting on her response…

The school environment presents significant challenges for teachers as first responders to children who experience psychological turmoil during traumatic events. As these challenges emanate, the need for effective Psychological First Aid (PFA) becomes crucial to lessen the short and long-term impact of trauma on both the learners and these…

Discussions of trauma-informed practices tend to focus on student behaviors and strategies for managing those behaviors, rather than the circumstances students are experiencing. Critical educators have expressed concern that a focus on trauma-informed practices lead teachers to view students from marginalized backgrounds with a deficit lens,…

Music learning can invoke moments of vulnerability. Vulnerability is a key component of coherent self-concept development in adolescence, which is crucial not only for learning, but also for positive, long-term mental health outcomes in adulthood. Utilizing a lens of psychological development, we consider the relationship between the vulnerability…

Using a qualitative design, a clinical mental health counselor explored the use of trauma-informed self-regulation strategies with clinical mental health counselors in training (CITs) to capture their experience of vicarious trauma. Participants included three CITs in an urban setting and two CITs in a rural setting enrolled in a CACREP-accredited…

Trauma-informed teaching practices and therapeutic art approaches can promote creativity, feelings of safety, and resiliency. This research examines the effectiveness of trauma-informed teaching practices and therapeutic art approaches in supporting at-risk elementary art students in Kensington, Philadelphia. It will emphasize how art-making can…

In recent years, interest in the therapeutic potential of yoga for people recovering from trauma has flourished. To date, much of this research on yoga for trauma adopts a quantitative methodology that positions yoga as a medicalised intervention to understand if yoga is 'effective' for trauma recovery for adults. This paper seeks to contribute to…

Trauma-informed teaching and learning has gained a great deal of prominence in higher education over the past three years. Typical approaches to trauma-informed work often start with a generalized set of ideas and principles that are then applied to very individualized and contexts. In this article, written as a dialogue between two educational…

Significant traumatic events affect communities and schools. Teachers need tools to help navigate challenging conversations with their students. Consequently, we utilized our children's literature course on the use of picture books that would invite dialogue supporting children responding to traumatic events. Specifically, we reconceptualized an…

The concept of trauma has garnered interest since the Vietnam War and continues to be a visible topic (Center for Substance Abuse Treatment [CSAT], 2014) in the literature. Research has determined that the prevalence of trauma is widespread and its effects are potentially far-reaching, often outlasting the event for many years (Substance Abuse and…

There has been a sharp increase in mental health support for children in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a growing demand for school-based mental health services due to gaps in the US youth mental health infrastructure. This dissertation presents an action research study conducted in a Title I middle school in Arizona, exploring a school…

If the recent turbulent times have shown educators anything, it is that we need to be prepared to address our own and our students' social and emotional needs. However, moments of tension are not the time to start. Rather, students need to be prepared to engage in meaningful ways with skills and competencies. To achieve this state of readiness,…