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Strategies for Relieving Distress and Trauma in Schools and Classrooms

Barbara E Oehlberg

From trauma, stress, and hopelessness to safety, challenge, and optimism!

Not all children cope equally well with the stresses and traumas life throws their way, and every educator recognizes that "deer in the headlights" look some children get when current events and past traumas combine to trigger a fight-or-flight stress response. No matter how safe the classroom may be in reality, trauma deactivates cognitive skills, and learning cannot resume until the child's equilibrium has been restored.

This important new resource helps educators understand how trauma and stress interfere with cognitive skills, and how classroom and school activities can be used to restore feelings of safety, empowerment, and well-being. Topics include:

• Neurobiology of the developing child and how cognitive lock-out from the neocortex occurs during stress responses
• Strategies for reactivating cognitive skills, memory, and the ability to learn following stress responses
• How acting-out behaviors are linked to stress and trauma
• How to generate a united effort on school safety and violence prevention issues
• Teachers, counselors, principals, and administrators will find that these innovative strategies enhance feelings of safety and optimism in all learning environments and programs, transforming hopelessness and anxiety into resiliency and hope.

Author

Barbara E Oehlberb Foreword by Susan G. Clark

After completing the post-graduate program in Child Development and Family Studies at the University of Akron, Barbara Oehlberg was employed by the Family Life Program, Office of Adult Education, and Cleveland Public Schools.  She wrote, Parenting for Peaceful Families:  A Resource Guide for Parent Educators, for Ohio?s Governor R. Celeste during that time. Since retirement, Barbara has become an avid reader of neurological research and has become certified as a Child Trauma Consultant by the Institute for Trauma; Loss in Children. She serves on their Board of Advisors. She has authored another book on classroom transformation of stress, preschool to grade three; Making it Better: Activities for Children Living in a Stressful World, was published in 1996. Barbara teaches CEU courses for educators through Kent State and Ashland Universities She serves as a consultant for Ohio?s Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management and provides in-services to Ohio's schools. 

Audience

Educators/School Pyshologists