Making the time and space for healing to happen at school

School is supposed to be, first and foremost, a place to focus on learning. But for many students, learning can be disrupted by the realities of their lives—especially traumatic experiences.

“Lived experiences impact humans in seen and unseen ways that can go on for a very long time,” explains Rachel Babcock, Co-Founder and Co-Director of Map Academy. “There’s an iceberg under the water of people’s lived experiences, particularly traumatic events that … change kids and students, that can impact the way they experience new things in unforeseen and unpredictable ways.”

Increasingly, schools have begun to recognize the impacts of trauma on students and their ability to engage with school. This is commonly known as a “trauma-informed” approach to teaching and learning, wherein all members of a school community are aware of and responsive to the various academic, social-emotional, and behavioral effects that trauma can have.

There are plenty of best practices recommended to schools wanting to adopt a trauma-informed approach. But in traditional learning environments lacking the capacity and flexibility to allow for self-paced learning and robust mental health support, students struggling with the effects of trauma often aren’t given the time and resources they need to recover before they are able to get back on track academically—which can lead to those students falling behind, or having to drop out altogether.

That’s why schools like Map opt for a similar yet distinct practice: a “healing-centered” approach to teaching, learning, and youth development.

“I think the most important piece of a healing-centered approach is space,” says Mike Balaschi, Assistant Director and Social Worker at Map Academy. “We just hold space for kids to get to a place to be able to access academics instead of forcing the academics first.”

Another important component of a healing-centered approach, Mike says, is meeting students where they are in their process of healing and always making sure they are able to make active decisions about the support they choose to access.

“I think with a trauma-informed approach in a traditional setting, you’re certainly helping kids, but you’re not allowing them autonomy,” he explains. “It could all be done with good intentions, but not allowing them that decision-making process for themselves is where I think most schools fail, just because they can’t. They don’t have what Map Academy offers in regards to the attendance policy, the asynchronous approach, the competency-based grading.”

And even when adopting a trauma-informed approach, traditional schools are often unable to provide a more tailored, individualized approach to student support, meaning staff sometimes prescribe solutions to students that might not work for them. 

“I don’t think [trauma-informed] has as much of an individual approach as having a healing-centered space, just because you’re dictating, ‘I’m trauma-informed, and I know that if this is what you’ve been through, then this is what you need,’” Mike explains. 

Instead, at Map and other healing-centered schools, staff work to connect students with the tailored resources and care they need to begin to heal, like mental health counseling (including grief support), physical, sexual and reproductive healthcare, recovery coaches, holistic health approaches like yoga and meditation, and expressive art therapy. With access to these supports along the way, students are able to re-engage academically and track towards their goals at a pace that works for them.

Ultimately, the healing-centered environment cultivated at Map focuses on acknowledging and understanding what has happened to students while helping them progress through it.

“It’s not, ‘What’s wrong with you?’—which is what happens in many public schools and even in statutory settings—it’s ‘What has happened to you? What have your experiences been?’ Positive or negative,’” explains Maxanne, a Social Worker at Map. “’How can we help you understand them and how they’re impacting you right now?’ Then, [we] make a plan to move forward and be able to make connections and feel like you have worth and a future.”

Making connections, as Maxanne mentions, is central to a student’s healing process.

“The importance of connection is so huge, because for so many individuals who are struggling, it’s … shame and guilt in isolation, so they’re not connecting with anyone,” says Maxanne. “As you build connections, you start to intrinsically and internally feel a sense of worth that, ‘I’ve connected with this individual. I matter to them. They matter to me.’ It’s almost like a domino effect where then you feel more confident, and you make additional connections in the community, or you feel more confident asking for help from professionals.”

A crucial balance for the Map staff to strike is building these connections and relationships while also setting and reinforcing boundaries and expectations so students can stay focused on their goals.

“Don’t disrupt other people’s educations, don’t put other people in harm’s way—that’s the clear boundary that’s set,” Assistant Director Mike explains. “I think it’s really important that we find that balance of recognizing when the opportunity is there to set a strong boundary, but also know that it’s an individualized approach, too. We’re not necessarily setting the same boundary for this kid as we might for this student because this one isn’t going to respond well to that.”

“I think the nice part about that—especially at Map Academy, where it is really healing-centered—is that it’s done in privacy,” he continues. “There’s no power struggles with teachers. There’s no public humiliation or forcing a student into a weird situation.”

And those power struggles, public humiliations, and weird situations that Mike mentions are sometimes painful experiences that Map students have dealt with at their previous schools. So the Map team works to ensure their students trust they’ll do things differently than what has failed—or even traumatized—them in the past.

“What we tend to see in the school setting is defiance or apathy. Within depression or anxiety, students are not wanting to believe in themselves,” Maxanne says. “They’re not able to verbalize that, so it comes across as, ‘I don’t want to do the work today.’ They’re not able to visualize a future.”

“We get a lot of kids like that that come in,” adds Mike. “They’re truant. They haven’t been to school in a while. It’s like, ‘Well, I’ve been shamed. I’ve been told I’m stupid. I’ve been told I can’t read. I don’t know why.’ Those students … have trauma, and they’re acting out because they’re being pushed to do something they can’t do, and then getting suspended for it. That whole cycle is detrimental for a lot of these kids.”

“Everyone has an opportunity to access education and to be valued and is worthy,” Maxanne says. “These individuals are perfect as they are, and it’s not that they have to change to fit into a model—the models need to change so they’re inclusive to everyone. Certainly, everyone has room for growth and improvement and healing, but no individual should have to change to fit into a constraint that’s already set up.”