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Today we’re speaking Laurel Downey. Laurel is a Family Therapist of many years of experience from a wide variety of contexts, from child and adolescent mental health to child trauma and more. She’s previously been a Senior Research Officer at James Cook University, a Manager of Practice Development and Training at Berry street, and she is currently the co-founder and CEO of Catalyst child and family services. Catalyst is a not for profit organisation whose aim is to provide services to children, young people, their caregivers and families that will assist in reclaiming lives that have been harmed by abuse, neglect, chaos, and other violence.
In this episode Laurel and I speak about a report that she produced a number of years ago entitled Calmer Classrooms. The Calmer Classrooms report aims to support kindergarten, primary and secondary school teachers, and other school staff to understand and work with young people whose lives have been affected by trauma. I feel that this is an incredibly important episode. This paper sat on my reading list for a good number of years, and I’m glad that I finally got around to it because it is absolutely packed with incredible advice and insights.
Patreon supporters this month will receive a pdf copy of Ollie's summary of the report Calmer Classrooms. If you’d like to support the Education Research Reading Room podcast, please check out the ERRR Patreon page to explore this option. The average listener donation is $5 per month.
Within this podcast we start with theory, discussing both Attachment and Trauma theory, and learning first about how to recognise potential signs of trauma in the classroom. In the second half of the interview we move on to practical classroom strategies, discussing how to disrupt negative downwards cycles, and exploring how best to deal with a collection of tricky scenarios with potentially traumatised children.
I hope that you get as much value out of this discussion with Laurel as I did.
Links/resources mentioned in the show
- Calmer Classrooms (the full report – approx. 40 pages)
- Ollie's summary of Calmer Classrooms (approx. 6.5 pages, sign up as a patron for access)
- Catalyst child and family services, Laurel's org
- Mailing list for teachers that Laurel mentioned (awaiting link)
- CESE's recent report on Trauma informed practice in schools
- This episode's sponsor, StudyClix Australia, StudyClix Ireland
Listen to all past episodes of the ERRR podcast here.