Screening Elementary Students for Exposure to Trauma

Introduction: Children react to trauma in various ways, many of which can challenge their relationships at school and their ability to learn. In addition to PTSD, trauma-exposed children may exhibit symptoms of anxiety, depression, dissociation, and impairment in school functioning, including poor grades and high absenteeism. Even subclinical symptoms of trauma if left untreated pose a significant risk for the development of other psychiatric disorders, with a substantial portion of traumatized youth subsequently developing depression, anxiety, and disruptive behaviors. This crisis has prompted a call for innovative and research-based approaches for addressing barriers to learning—going beyond explicitly academic interventions and exclusionary discipline practices—to address the learning challenges posed by problematic student behaviors and the methods adults use to respond to them.

Methods: The goal of Project SECURE is to enhance the physical and emotional security of students in elementary schools in an urban school district by increasing their Safety, Equity, Caring, Understanding, and Resilience. Guided by the principles of evidence-based, multi-tiered, and responsive support systems, Project SECURE will offer universal and targeted interventions (Second Step and Bounce Back, respectively) to improve social-emotional skills, reduce bullying, and ameliorate the devastating effects of trauma. Bounce Back is a structured secondary-level group therapy program designed for elementary school children who have experienced significant traumatic stress. School-based clinicians deliver the program through 10 group therapy sessions, 2 to 3 individual sessions, and up to 3 parent engagement sessions. Within the first 2 months of school, a multi-disciplinary team will implement a classroom screening process in grades 4‑5 to identify students for targeted areas of need, including traumatic stress. During this process, the school social worker and classroom teacher (and the principal, school nurse, family liaison, or resource teacher as needed) will discuss each student’s academics, health, social and emotional development, current services, and trauma experiences. From this screening, the school social worker may seek additional student self-assessment and parent surveys to confirm eligibility for Bounce Back program participation.

Results: This presentation will describe the classroom screening process used to identify students eligible for the Bounce Back intervention in Project SECURE along with the baseline data for the first cohort of students receiving Bounce Back in Year 1 of the project.

Conclusions: Results from the study will strengthen the knowledge base regarding effective screening procedures for students exposed to trauma in elementary schools.