TIPPS: Social Workers using an Anti-Racist, Trauma-Informed Framework to Increase Social Justice in Schools

Overview: This interactive workshop will focus on research-based trauma-informed practices in school social work, with a focus on ways to mitigate trauma, including racism and oppression. Scenarios will be presented to facilitate dialogue and identify strategies for collaboratively supporting students’ needs to reduce bias and mitigate risk of Adverse Childhood Experiences.Proposal text: School Social Work has increasingly become aware of trauma-informed work as an important model for school-based intervention (Chafouleas et al., 2016). Racism, bias, and other forms of oppression are important, although often neglected, aspects of understanding trauma. An emerging framework for addressing trauma in schools is an anti-racist lens that seeks to increase educational equity and mitigate the harm done to students (Crutchfield et al., 2020).
Adverse childhood experiences (ACES) include, but are not limited to, exposure to violence, abuse/neglect, bullying, terrorism, unexpected medical events, systemic racism, prejudice, and mistreatment of people of color and other marginalized groups (Blodgett & Lanigan, 2018). ACES have long-term impacts, such as increased risk of physical and mental health issues, learning problems, and a higher risk of interacting with the justice system (SAMHSA, 2022). Schools are an environment that can increase resilience in a child, which can help reduce the long-term impact of ACES and other forms of trauma (Woodside & Hardy, 2020). Schools can also play a role in re-traumatizing the child, specifically when trauma-informed practices are not utilized (Chafouleas et al., 2016). Social Work education must prepare social workers to play a critical role in promoting healing and resilience among youth who have experienced trauma. Schools becoming trauma-informed can be key to increasing positive outcomes for students. It is important for school social workers and other school personnel to learn and implement trauma-informed practices in order to decrease implicit bias and strengthen relationships with youth (Chafouleas et al., 2016). Trauma-Informed Programs and Practices For Schools (TIPPS) is a research-based systems framework that offers a series of guiding principles and strategies to increase trauma-informed practices in schools (Herrenkohl et al., 2021). The TIPPS framework features 10-core pillars that guide activities tailored to the cultures and contexts of schools and examine the connection between different forms of trauma and how schools, as systems, can help mitigate the effects of trauma and/or systemic forms of adversity.
This interactive workshop will present trauma and trauma-informed practices that include disrupting racism and other forms of oppression in school settings. Participants will have the opportunity to share their knowledge of how trauma appears in the school setting. There will also be an in-depth look at ACES, including the International ACES (WHO, 2020), specifically focused on childhood adversities and long-term impact.
The presenters will lead a discussion of anti-racism as a key area of school social work education and practice. Participants will be able to describe three ways trauma can impact students, identify racism and other forms of oppression as a key context of ACES/trauma in schools, and discover a trauma-informed model that utilizes micro, mezzo, and macro social work theories and practices to mitigate risk and increase positive outcomes for students. Participants will then engage in small group activities exploring trauma-informed practices in case scenarios. The workshop will discuss how trauma-informed models that center racism and other forms of oppression can be a vehicle for advancing anti-racist social work education.