Finding the Path Forward Adolescent Group is a program developed for young people engaging in relational violence in the home and school environments. This program is an initiative developed alongside therapeutic programs run across the state of Victoria providing specialist outreach support for young people and their families with relationship violence occurring. The group program aims to provide an early intervention with at-risk young people to provide them with a space to develop their emotional and physical regulation skills, explore the concept of safety and boundaries, and explore their roles and engagement in important relationships in their lives.  The group program has been successfully run across several metropolitan and regional school settings, in collaboration with school well-being teams. Key outcomes after completing the group program for these young people included a greater understanding of emotions and body awareness; capacity to track and identify dysregulation; an improved sense of safety within the group and in relationships with each other and extended family members; a felt sense of boundaries and the impact of breaching or having these boundaries breached and increased connection, attendance and participation in school. The positive outcomes of this group speak to the overwhelming need this cohort of young people have for a space in which they can develop key skills such as communication, safety in relationships and emotion regulation. The hope is that continued early intervention and participation in this therapeutic group helps prevent at-risk behaviours for these young people and keeps them engaged in the school system and with key protective relationships in their world.

This study utilised a hermeneutic approach to investigate the literature about school disengagement through the lens of trauma and to see how the implementation of primary school counsellors in Aotearoa New Zealand could support trauma-informed school practices. A hermeneutic methodology suited this study for several reasons: research on trauma-informed schooling is in its infancy, there is a disconnect between discourse about helping young people and the resources available to support them, trauma-informed literature predominantly comes from Western perspectives and cannot readily be applied in Aotearoa, and such a methodology honours the engagement of researcher-as-participant, making use of their experiences in these contexts. Poetry was employed as an additional research method to express the dialogical encounters and embodied meaning-making that clarified the critical need to decolonise academic spaces. The findings are presented as a journey from considering the existing school system as one that is “broken” and “failing” children to one that is functioning as designed under the influences of colonisation, assimilation, power, and neoliberal ideas. The study ponders ideas of claimed knowledge and explores the resilience of young people in the face of marginalisation. Implications from these findings include the need and prospect for decolonising school counselling practices by centring the voices of disenfranchised young people to shape a mana-enhancing and context-specific approach to their trauma. This research calls for school counsellors to exist in the liminal spaces between trauma, counselling, and education.

Educational facilities are in a perfect position to implement trauma-aware early intervention strategies to reduce the long-term outcomes and associated public health costs of complex childhood trauma. Recent developments in neuroscience have provided significant understandings to support why trauma-informed practice in schools and education facilities is important and necessary. If we put on our neuroscience lens, what are the practical strategies that will help build self-regulation in our students and promote calm, safe and engaging classrooms?

Many of the challenging behaviours seen in schools are a result of maladaptive behaviours forming in response to early childhood trauma. As these behaviours have been formed as a defence mechanism, they are largely automated, governed by the brain stem to keep us safe. Unfortunately, a top-down approach is often seen in schools, with a focus on the analytical thinking brain needed for learning.

Dr Bruce Perry coined the terminology 'Regulate, Relate, Reason' as part of a bottom-up approach to support children impacted by trauma. First, we Regulate to provide a sense of safety and calm, and to support the child through their fight, flight or freeze response. Then we can Relate by connection and attunement, supporting co-regulation. All this needs to happen before we can Reason with the child, to support them to understand their emotions, their responses, and ultimately reengage in learning.

Join this fun and engaging workshop to discuss and experience a broad range of proactive and practical strategies to utilise in your classroom to Regulate our brain stems – the important first step before we can Relate and Reason. Participants will walk away with some practical ideas to use in their classrooms to support self- and co-regulation.