The Role of Law and Courts in Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools

LIfTS Keynote - Michael Gregory

The heart of the trauma-sensitive schools movement is the important work educators do in classrooms and school buildings to create learning environments where all students can feel safe and supported. However, decisions made by judges and lawmakers help set the conditions in which this work takes place.

Multisystem Youth: How we can understand the interplay of trauma and intersectional identity to improve outcomes for our most vulnerable youth.

LIfTS Keynote- Kate Lowenstein

The majority of the young people who end up involved in our juvenile justice system have multiple traumatic experiences during their childhood. In Massachusetts, experiences in the child welfare system too often compound existing trauma as the brain is developing, leading to trauma-related behaviors that are punished instead of treated, particularly for Black and Brown youth. For youth involved in the child welfare system, the school can be a place of adult and peer stability, or a place where misunderstood trauma is punished and the “school to prison pipeline” accelerated. This presentation will explore the data on Massachusetts foster youth, their intersectional identities, their experiences in the child welfare and school systems, and what the research tells us about how to best support these youth before trauma-related behaviors result in punishment or arrest.