Taught to Respond in an Emergency: Teachers as first responders in cases of childhood trauma.

Author : JeanneGunther

Abstract :New teachers may actually begin their careers unaware of the ways they are needed beyond instructional and emotional, but truly as first responders to students in trauma. The idea of teachers as first responders is not completely new (eg., Butz, 2018; Anderson, 2020; Gunther, 2023). The need to include strategies for supporting PK-12 students in trauma within the traditional teacher preparation program may be though. With school-aged children spending more waking hours at school with their teachers than they do with their parents (Minkel, 2018), and teachers being the first to possibly notice a child as traumatized, preparing new teachers to address the needs of these very students is imperative. One particular strategy, the use of developmental bibliotherapy (DB), has been shown effective as a support to children in trauma (De Vries et al., 2017). While this method has long been employed by or suggested to inservice teachers (Pardeck, 1995), it is either not often taught in the coursework of teacher preparation programs or not studied for research. The research question guiding this study is: In what ways can a workshop in bibliotherapy promote self-efficacy for the practice for undergraduates in the field of education and related fields?

Keywords :teachers as first responders, trauma-informed teaching, PK-12 students, teacher preparation programs, developmental bibliotherapy, student trauma support, bibliotherapy workshop, self-efficacy, education

Conference Name :International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (ICLLCE-24)

Conference Place Greater Valparaiso, Chile

Conference Date 13th Dec 2024