Edith Geurts
Augeo
I work at Augeo since 2011 as content expert / adviser on child abuse, domestic violence and trauma-informed work. I was involved in the development of several online courses on tackling child abuse and neglect and I'm chief editor of our online magazine (www.augeomagazine.nl). I work in several innovative projects, all focused on creating a safe home and school for children.
I studied social sciences at Utrecht University and worked about eleven years at the Dutch Youth Institute (NJi) in all kind of projects on child abuse and neglect. I published many articles on the subjects child abuse and neglect, children exposed to domestic violence, parental divorce, trauma-informed teaching etc.
Augeo Academy developed the online course ‘Trauma-informed teaching’ to train teachers about providing support to children who have suffered adverse experiences. This course has a broad, international, theoretical basis.... [ view full abstract ]
Augeo Academy developed the online course ‘Trauma-informed teaching’ to train teachers about providing support to children who have suffered adverse experiences. This course has a broad, international, theoretical basis. In this course, primary school teachers learn what trauma is, how trauma and stress affects the emotions and behaviour of children, how they can help children to lower their stress levels, and how they can help restore these children’s natural resilience to stress.
The course was then distributed widely among teachers, and its effect examined. This first involved looking at how the self-efficacy of teachers increased after attending the course, which was done by getting 190 teachers to fill out questionnaires about the extent to which they feel able to offer support to children who have suffered adverse experiences. It showed that teachers felt in a better position to support children after following the course. They were more aware of which supportive actions they could deploy to increase children’s sense of safety, foster relationships, and help children cope with strong emotions and inappropriate behaviour.
In addition, the wellbeing of children whose teachers knew how to incorporate trauma-informed aspects in their lessons was studied. In this respect, teachers and children were asked to complete a questionnaire on three occasions, with questions about the relationship between pupil and teacher and the social, emotional, cognitive and physical functioning in the classroom of children with adverse experiences. The results showed that being informed about trauma-informed teaching contributes to a slightly improved relationship between teacher and pupil, and that pupils themselves say they experience fewer negative interactions with the teacher, feel physically and mentally better in the classroom, and function better in emotional terms.
In this presentation, we will introduce the course and the design and results of the studies.
