1. Jackie Mader, Multimedia Editor and Reporter The Hechinger Report
Reporting on Trauma
Jackie Mader, Multimedia Editor and Reporter
The Hechinger Report

2. Why it matters
So many of our stories in education touch on trauma but don’t explicitly talk about it. For example, stories about poverty, food insecurity, homelessness, foster care, bullying, school shootings, natural disasters that displace students.
We talk about poor outcomes for certain student groups but don’t necessarily always explain how circumstances in their lives can actually change their brain, impact development, and impact behavior and/or academics. That connection can be really powerful for readers and explain why the stakes are so high.
Get readers to care more.

3. How we report on trauma now
Solutions stories: trauma-informed practices like teachers responding in a different way to students, the “sad not bad” campaign, offering more counselors and therapists, innovative school models like charter schools targeted toward children in foster care, efforts to address this in early education
Follow up stories: years after natural disasters, children may have trauma they are dealing with. Is that being addressed?
Weave brain research into stories that touch on trauma: child-parent separation, home visiting, early childhood education, foster care, homelessness, etc. Any time we are explaining why a student may have negative outcomes (and is in a group where he or she may be at-risk of trauma), it’s an opportunity to explain WHY and HOW that trauma impacts the brain, behavior, academics, etc.

4. Story ideas
Teacher training or PD in mental health and trauma-informed practices and efforts to support teachers with programs, mental health consultations, etc.
Family/parent outreach efforts (like parenting programs/home visiting programs)
Trauma in school (bullying) and out of school (violence, food insecurity, other adverse childhood experiences)
Trauma in the short term and long term after a school tragedy, natural disaster, etc.
Efforts to support kids, such as new school models, school programs, more mental health professionals

5. How to dig in deeper Add in brain research.
Look for stories specifically about about common ACE’s in your area. Explain how and why that trauma impacts kids and can impact their outcomes.
Solutions stories: Schools that are using trauma informed practices, states that are addressing mental health (like California, early childhood mental health consultations), There was a recent Minn Post story about a district that has put full time therapists in classrooms.
Go beyond the program and get into why trauma is so important (brain development, impact on academics, attention, etc) and hence why this solution may be effective (or is effective). Give time to make the connections Dr. Walker made in his presentation

6. Best practices
Talk to experts, read the research, and really familiarize yourself with it. You don’t want to make generalizations. Kids who live in poverty may or may not experience an impact in their brain development. Kids who go through trauma will experience it differently and it will manifest itself in different behaviors. You want to educate others on what trauma does to a child and why that matters.
Talk to early childhood mental health experts, especially for advice on how to talk to children about it
It may be inappropriate to talk to a child specifically about that trauma, but you can often explain the outcomes of that trauma by simply sitting by a child, watching him or her play, etc.
Check out the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma at Columbia for tips:
Check out the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard:

7. Some examples
Sarah Carr’s 2014 story on how New Orleans is not addressing mental health, even though there is so much need (especially post-Katrina): school-health-care-decentralization-affect-neediest-children/
Caroline Preston’s story on a charter school modeled around a trauma-informed approach specifically to help children in foster care: door/
ABC Australia: Interactive story about when and how CPS intervenes in homes that forces the reader to weigh the consequences and potential traumas of home life with the trauma of being taken out of home. remove-these- children/ ?fbclid=IwAR2hXLZv4PTgSTtf5l6U2A3FD7qMONZcgETvvcavTlY_g66tgnG1-lP2HTQ
Why family separation, poverty, and food insecurity can be so damaging to children:
How play is helping refugee children: rohingya-children-in-bangladesh/