Dealing with Student Trauma: Exploring School Leadership Experiences and Impact
Tracks
Prince Room
| Tuesday, March 21, 2023 |
| 2:30 PM - 2:50 PM |
Overview
Anushka Phal, Umeed Psychology
Speaker
Anushka Phal
Director
Umeed Psychology
Dealing with Student Trauma: Exploring School Leadership Experiences and Impact
Abstract
The current study investigated the experiences, training, and support needs of school leaders regarding students who have experienced trauma.
This study used a generic qualitative research methodology and followed a constructivist epistemological approach. In addition, the semi-structured interview schedule was developed with the opportunity for both the interviewer and interviewee to further explore the responses from the latter. Leadership staff in Australian primary and secondary schools participated in interviews regarding student trauma. Thematic analysis incorporated a process of reading and re-reading transcripts, identifying themes and related subthemes within the data, and defining and naming the themes and subthemes.
A school’s ability to support students following trauma is likely to be greatly influenced by the level of awareness and competence of the school leaders to provide support, implement programs, and drive wider school cultural change. This study found school leaders to understand this responsibility but that they lacked adequate policies and educational structure to be able to implement evidence-based trauma programs and policies. The results of this study indicate that school leaders require system-level policies, additional training, and evidence-based comprehensive school frameworks to assist them to generate supportive school environments for staff and students impacted by trauma.
Based on the limited literature exploring school leader experiences in dealing with student trauma, this study provides new and important insights into the needs of school leaders regarding how to effectively support young people impacted by trauma, and how to support the teachers who support these students. In addition to providing adequate training, external support from mental health specialists should be available to school leaders and staff to assist with responding to student trauma. This study also has positive implications for school policymakers, repeating this research in other sites would assist with building the research base for both trauma policy and training.
This study used a generic qualitative research methodology and followed a constructivist epistemological approach. In addition, the semi-structured interview schedule was developed with the opportunity for both the interviewer and interviewee to further explore the responses from the latter. Leadership staff in Australian primary and secondary schools participated in interviews regarding student trauma. Thematic analysis incorporated a process of reading and re-reading transcripts, identifying themes and related subthemes within the data, and defining and naming the themes and subthemes.
A school’s ability to support students following trauma is likely to be greatly influenced by the level of awareness and competence of the school leaders to provide support, implement programs, and drive wider school cultural change. This study found school leaders to understand this responsibility but that they lacked adequate policies and educational structure to be able to implement evidence-based trauma programs and policies. The results of this study indicate that school leaders require system-level policies, additional training, and evidence-based comprehensive school frameworks to assist them to generate supportive school environments for staff and students impacted by trauma.
Based on the limited literature exploring school leader experiences in dealing with student trauma, this study provides new and important insights into the needs of school leaders regarding how to effectively support young people impacted by trauma, and how to support the teachers who support these students. In addition to providing adequate training, external support from mental health specialists should be available to school leaders and staff to assist with responding to student trauma. This study also has positive implications for school policymakers, repeating this research in other sites would assist with building the research base for both trauma policy and training.
Biography
Anushka is a passionate psychologist driving advocacy and change for minority communities across Australia. With her primary focus on Cultural Psychology and Educational & Developmental Psychology. As the founder of Umeed Psychology - a social enterprise enabling positive mental health conversations and outcomes through a psychology private practice, Anushka aims to support the betterment of Asian Australian and Pacific Islander mental health.
Umeed Psychology approaches mental health from a holistic lens and aims to provide prevention, intervention and postvention services. This includes but is not limited to culturally sensitive professional development resources and workshops for mental health practitioners, individual and group counselling, consulting services for other organisations and events, support groups and research.
