A growing body of research shows childhood trauma is endemic in schools with an estimated one-third of Australian children having been exposed to physical, sexual, or emotional abuse.
To address this, experts at Flinders University will start work on Australia’s first ‘Trauma Aware School Village’ – a new project to unite caregivers, educators, students, and researchers to find whole-school solutions for addressing childhood trauma in schools.
“Complex childhood trauma and maltreatment not only have a hugely negative impact on children’s mental health and education, but they also carry a hefty economic burden estimated to be as high as $24 billion,” Project lead, Dr Ben Lohmeyer, from the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work said.
“Together we will co-design develop, deliver and assess the impact of the Trauma Aware School Village in supporting emotional regulation, safety, and connection in schools by co-designing assessments, treatments, and preventions.”
The project, which will be run in partnership with Connected Self: Wellbeing Services with funding of almost $1m from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), will help the University to shape evidence-based practice guidelines for implementing practices in Australian schools that will reduce the impact of trauma on children’s mental health.
“Programs delivered in schools have the potential to address and prevent childhood trauma, but there is limited evidence of the effectiveness of this approach in Australia, virtually no evidence of co-design with consumers, and no evidence of engaging children and caregivers in trauma education through a community approach,” Dr Lohmeyer said.
“The Trauma Aware School Village will assess the impact of a co-designed intervention that includes experiential trauma-aware education for students, trauma-informed professional development for educators, individualised therapeutic intervention for students and educators, and trauma aware resources for caregivers.”
The ultimate hope, says Dr Lohmeyer, is to create a way to change individual behaviour and support trauma systems to improve emotional self-regulation, safety in the classroom, and to promote a sense of connection between students, educators and caregivers in school.
The new research project, Trauma Aware School Village: Tackling Childhood Trauma In Schools, has received $999,614.42 as part of the latest grants awarded by the MRFF.
The project will start in 2025 and run for two years and will include schools across Adelaide.