Beyond Behaviour: Understanding Trauma-Informed Practice in Schools
Let's Talk Teaching Podcast
Season 4 - Episode 1
8 June 2026
Not every student behaviour is defiance, disengagement, or disruption. As trauma-informed practice becomes a growing focus in education, teachers are increasingly being asked to respond to complex student needs with understanding, safety and connection.
Transcript
Rebecca Cooper [00:00]: This podcast is recorded on the land of the Boonwurrung people of the Eastern Kulin Nation. We'd like to pay our respect to Elders past and present and acknowledge that this land was stolen and never ceded. Welcome to Let's Talk Teaching, the podcast created by teachers for teachers.
Emily Berger [00:19]: Now, when we think about trauma, we can think about a range of different experiences that can impact people in different ways. So, I've seen examples where people talk about school bullying as an example of trauma. And I think the important thing to remember about trauma is that trauma is less about the type of event, and it's more about how you experience the event and your interpretation of the event.
Rebecca Cooper [00:45]: Not every challenge in the classroom can be explained by behaviour or learning alone. As the focus on student wellbeing continues to grow, So too does the pressure on teachers to respond effectively in complex situations.
Yihan Sun [00:58]: For many educators where they started to work in this space, because we have no training in the initial teacher education, so they're not taught what they can do. So if it's their first time to work with trauma-impacted children, they're sort of really lost in what is their responsibilities.
Rebecca Cooper [01:17]: While these moments are often approached through behavioral wellbeing strategies, there's a growing focus on the role trauma can play and the need to understand what's happening for students, not just respond to the behaviours we see.
Emily Berger [01:30]: It has to be a system that sits around the educator to support the educator. It has to have strong, committed leaders. It has to have policies that sit behind the educator to support them. More allied health support is absolutely needed in schools. We need to make sure that we have mental health support for for the young person but also for the teacher.
Rebecca Cooper [01:50]: I'm Associate Professor Rebecca Cooper, Assistant Dean of Initial Teacher Education at Monash University's Faculty of Education. Each episode we bring together education experts and alumni to unpack real challenges in the classroom with insights you can apply in your own teaching practice.
Joining me today is Associate Professor Emily Berger, an educational and developmental psychologist specializing in trauma-informed practice, and Yee Han Sun, a PhD candidate researching how trauma-informed approaches can be applied in early childhood settings.
Emily, there's a growing awareness of trauma-informed practice in education, but can you just start by telling us what exactly does that mean and what do teachers need to understand about it?
Emily Berger [02:40]: So trauma-informed practice takes decades of research and understanding about the impacts of trauma that can have on, on people's lives. So it's a way to understand and respond to people who've been exposed to trauma, giving the skills and strategies to educators to be able to respond and support young people, students, and families who are experiencing or have experienced a traumatic event in their life.
It focuses on helping them to understand the prevalence to understand the impacts of trauma, so how trauma can impact social, emotional, behavioral, learning outcomes, and then how to respond in a proactive way that helps to mitigate some of those negative impacts that young people have when they have experiences of trauma.
Rebecca Cooper [03:29]: So in these sorts of situations, Emily, what do we mean by trauma?
Emily Berger [03:33]: Trauma can be any range of things, and the research is definitely becoming broader in our understanding of trauma, so So we used to think about trauma as being something that was life-threatening, certainly abuse in childhood.
But now when we think about trauma, we can think about a range of different experiences that can impact people in different ways. So I've seen examples where people talk about school bullying as an example of trauma. And I think the important thing to remember about trauma is that trauma is less about the type of event and it's more about how you experience the event and your interpretation of the event.
So that's where I say it can be quite broad, what types of events might constitute a traumatic experience, because it's more individual how I experience it, how I understand it, how it impacts me socially, emotionally, behaviourally, and cognitively as well. So there's certainly research that's showing some nuances in people.
So students with disability, for example, might experience a traumatic experience and have different effects than someone who maybe doesn't have a disability. So we're learning more and more about some nuances between people as well in terms of their experiences.
Rebecca Cooper [04:48]: Does that mean that if it's so broad and can be so broadly understood, does that also mean there are some misinterpretations and misconceptions out there around trauma-informed practice?
Emily Berger [05:00]: There can be, I guess, some misinterpretations of what trauma-informed practice is. I think probably the biggest misinterpretation, or one of them, is that trauma-informed practice is just for those who have experienced trauma. I think because we do take quite a broad lens of what what it means to be traumatized or experience a traumatic event, we can argue that all of us at some point in our lives will experience 1, 2, 3, 4 even events that could be considered traumatic.
So I guess what we try and argue through our research and our work in trauma-informed practice is that trauma-informed practice is actually for everyone, and it has benefits for everyone as well, regardless of the type of trauma, how many traumas you've experienced.
The, the underpinning components of trauma-informed practice can be beneficial for everyone.
Rebecca Cooper [05:52]: So, Yee Han, if we're moving into the classroom space, what might we see if we're observing trauma-informed practice? What might it look like?
Yihan Sun [06:03]: I think Emily has touched on a lot about how trauma-informed practice is not trauma-specific. So we really need to distinguish and differentiate these two type of approaches. And educators are not trained to be therapists. They don't diagnose, they don't provide this therapy to children.
But what they do is really at universal level to create a trauma-informed relational environment so children feel relationally safe, and trauma-informed physical and sensory environment so the space is safe for children to grow and learn.
Rebecca Cooper [06:36]: You've just said that they're trying to grow an environment that's physical, that's sensory, that's relational. Can you unpack those for me? So what do you mean by that physical environment? What do you mean by that relational environment? Can you tell us a little more about what those environments might look like?
Yihan Sun [06:53]: I think Emily just described what trauma-informed approach is, and a lot, a lot of us really take the 4 Rs of SAMHSA. Like, the, the— we, we've realized what's trauma and the impact it can have on the child's development. We can recognize what kind of behaviors are possibly being formed by trauma, and we respond by whatever different ways, and we resist re-traumatization, that we identify triggers and we prevent that.
So the, the trauma-informed relational and physical and sensory environment really sits between that respond domain. So it's how we respond to these children. So at relational sense, we talk a lot about how educators' self-regulation abilities really matters, how that enables them to have the psychological capacity to co-regulate with the child if the child is reacting strongly or if they see the big behaviors coming
out of the children and they can stay calm in that really heated moment to co-regulate with the child to further support their children's self-regulation. So for that, I think that's an example of how that is the trauma-informed relational environment. And for trauma-informed physical and sensory environments, really observing children, getting to know the children, identifying what might be the potential triggers and actively prevent that to be happening in the classroom.
In my prior interview with an educator, she pretty much said we avoid any Halloween stuff because that's when the trauma happens for one child in that room. So I think that's an example of how we build a really great understanding and knowledge of the child, the child experiences and the triggers, and we actively prevent that and provide a safe environment for them to navigate.
Yeah.
Rebecca Cooper [08:44]: You mentioned before that notion of co-regulation for the teacher. So I feel like there's— and you also mentioned before that, you know, teachers aren't therapists, right? So I feel like there's a bit of a balancing act there for teachers to sort of think carefully about that, that space.
So what are some ways that they can sort of make sure that they're not sort of blurring that line whilst also maintaining their own sort of need for psychological safety, I suppose, and self-regulation?
Emily Berger [09:20]: I think it's a really important point, and one point I'd like to bring up is that teachers are already doing some really great work in this space. And I think time and time again we talk to teachers and they say, "Oh, I don't know much about trauma-informed practice and I don't know the principles or I haven't read all the theory around trauma-informed practice." But then you ask them, "Well, what would you do?" Like just simply, "What would you do with a young person that you knew who was having a hard time at home?" And teachers will start to talk about some of the things they'll do and you'll quite clearly see, "Oh, well that aligns
with this principle of trauma-informed practice or this aligns with that principle." So it's about trauma-informed practice is a way to package what teachers teachers naturally do as caregivers to young people, just to give them the confidence and the skills to say, you're doing these things, or you could consider these other things.
And that sits within the suite of what trauma-informed practice is.
Rebecca Cooper [10:10]: So what are those things that you have observed that teachers are doing quite naturally that anyone listening can go, yeah, okay, I've already got that within my practice?
Emily Berger [10:19]: It really touches on what Ijan was speaking about before in terms of relationships teachers want to form strong attachments and bonds to their students. They care about their students. They want to get to know their students. They want to know the good, you know, that's happening in their life.
What are young people's interests? You know, what, what, you know, makes them excited when they get to school and what they want to learn about. So teachers are naturally attuned, I think, to wanting and being curious and caring about young people and about their students.
And I think, you know, as Ijhan has touched on, we would say that relationships and that attachment is a core pillar and the most important beginning pillar of being trauma-informed. And so already teachers are halfway there just by nature of, you know, who they are and how they approach things with young people.
Yihan Sun [11:13]: Yeah, I completely agree. And I think there's one thing that we really wanted to advocate for teachers, as being myself as a prior early childhood teacher supporting children impacted by trauma, feeling really frustrated that I don't know what I can do.
And that's what leads to my research in this space. And the more I explore what is trauma-informed practice and how that can apply in the early childhood context, I was like, a lot of things I was already doing, like the consistent routines, predictable environment, like children have a good understanding of what their day would be like, and their voice are empowered, included in all this decision-making process and all this trusting relationship with your key educator that you feel safe when you are in this environment.
I think these are all the overlap between high-quality pedagogy and trauma-informed practice because underlying trauma-informed practice really is the sense of safety, the sense of empowerment. Yeah, I think that's what teachers already do and they've done a great job.
Rebecca Cooper [12:18]: Yeah, so you're highlighting the sort of natural skills that the teachers have and also their ability to kind of observe and see how students are reacting within the classroom. So what is it that teachers should be paying attention to in terms of recognizing some sort of trauma-related need within a student in the classroom?
What might be those sorts of points of need that a teacher might observe?
Emily Berger [12:48]: I think there's no one easy way to answer this because our trauma, what traumatizes us and our trauma experience is so individual and different for everyone. And it can change from situation to situation. I might feel triggered in one classroom but maybe not in another.
I might have a safe relationship with one teacher but maybe not with another. What I always say in response to that is we're looking for change. We're looking for changes in how a young person is responding, and it can be across a range of different areas, as I said, social, emotional, behavioral, academic.
We're looking for changes in a young person and how they seem to be. And so this is where a good piece— well, an important piece of trauma-informed practice is remaining observant and curious. And again, you can't— you can only do that when you have a close relationship with the young person as the grounding to notice that there is something that has has shifted.
And the teacher might not know what shifted, and that's okay, but that something shifted. And I'm just going to be curious and continue to watch and observe and, and, and just see how things evolve over time.
Rebecca Cooper [13:55]: So, Yee Han, have you got an example perhaps where a teacher has observed something and then responded in a way that is trauma-informed?
Yihan Sun [14:03]: Yeah, of course. I think I just really wanted to pick up on what Emily has previously mentioned, like the change itself could be the first step. And if we were looking at the recognise point of view, how we could recognise that behaviours might be trauma-informed, because behaviours are powerful communication of what children might be experiencing.
Because underlying the trauma-informed practice is the, the mindset, the curious mindset that we wanted to know what's been happening, what the child is experiencing, what might the child be needing right now, and how we could respond to meet those needs. And some common trauma-related behaviours in early childhood environment, we could see first and the most common one and the loudest one, the hyperarousal, like those aggressive behaviors.
I've heard many experiences from early childhood teachers that the behaviors can be really big, aggressive, and teachers use the word fear, and that would strike me quite a bit when working with those behaviors.
And that's obviously very common. And another one usually got under the radar is some children can appear withdrawal, like they don't want to participate anything, they just hide on the table. Um, some children will display some regression behaviors like going back to nappies and not normal affection seeking.
So these are all possible behaviors that you need to be curious about to, to explore why is that. Why is that change? What might be triggering these behaviors? And a lot of time we say the underlying reasons for this are what we say fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses.
It's not the child deliberately wanted to do that behaviors to make your day hard. It's their nervous system's under stress and they have no control. It's their survival mode. It's what they do to make themselves feel safe and if we peel the onion, the underlying reason might be their disrupted attachment, unmet needs, or the triggers in that classroom environment.
It could be the sensory triggers, it could be the environmental triggers, it could even be the relational triggers. For example, if the teachers raise the voice and they reminded the child of an unpleasant experience before, it might be triggering. So it's really noticing what is changing, be curious about children's behaviours, and explore why that might be happening and how we could change our way of response or way of teaching or interacting to make the children feel safe.
Emily Berger [16:40]: I think I have a different example, and this is about the nuance that we were talking about, how it's different for everyone, is I've heard examples of young people who rather than withdrawing or having behavioural outbursts or, you know, changes in their academics, they actually become more studious.
They seek approval, they're more likely to want to engage with the teacher and be around the teacher, you know, sort of that comfort seeking. So it's a good example of how the behavior and the signs can just differ so much for different people because you do have young people who will, you know, want to seek out comfort and support and will want to, you know, be high achievers in relation to the fact they've experienced
their trauma.
Rebecca Cooper [17:32]: So what I'm really hearing is that it's about understanding the kids in the first place so that you recognize the shift from one behavior to another.
Emily Berger [17:41]: Absolutely, absolutely.
Rebecca Cooper [17:43]: And then it's about responding and reacting and remaining curious, so following up with, with the student about why, why the shift and what's going on. And so if you were going to approach a student in that situation, how might you start?
Emily Berger [17:59]: It's really important to approach it without judgment, without preconceived ideas. Certainly it's important not to promise that you can keep what you talk about secret because we know that that might not be the case.
You might have to tell someone for the child's safety or other people's safety. But approaching it with softness, kindness, being gentle and patient with the child, you know, just opening it up for them to talk.
So giving them space to talk rather than constantly rattling off, you know, question after question after question is really important. But just that curiosity, non-judgmental space to open up for a young person. And if you've got the foundation of a strong relationship with the student, that's going to make it so much easier for those conversations.
To happen.
Rebecca Cooper [18:55]: And Yee Han, does this look different in early childhood?
Yihan Sun [18:58]: I think it's pretty similar. Like we always say, the relational approach, being really curious, non-judgmental, using the compassionate way of responding, and really be intentional in what you see, how you perceive it.
We all have our own unconscious bias, and just be— is that metacognition in a way, to be really aware of what we are perceiving things, how we are thinking, and how we are responding. So being really intentional, and just— I think that that change of mindset really saved me as a teacher because I was in a point I felt like, why is the child behaving like that?
Why am I—
Emily Berger [19:40]: what—
Yihan Sun [19:40]: why am I having such a hard day so many days? That was to a point I was gonna burn out. But drawing from practice really gave me a different lens of looking at these behaviours. I'm no longer questioning why these behaviours are happening in my room, but more so really what child has been experiencing.
And I'm in such a prime position to do something and play— work as some sort of protective factor in the child's life. So what can I do? So being really understanding compassionate and intentional in my way of responding in early childhood.
Because we don't use teach a lot in early childhood. Despite we say intentional teaching, spontaneous teaching, but a lot of time teaching happens and learning happens in interactions, just how we interact with the children, how we set up the room. So we convey the message that I hear you, you're safe, Yeah, it's probably my main take.
Emily Berger [20:42]: I think that's a really good point, uh, because we have to remember for these children, a lot of the time school, early childhood school settings are their safe place. Okay. Their safe place to be with trusted adults who have a consistent routine.
It's predictable, which takes away, you know, the scary element for them. So, you know, it's important to remember that, that you are the safe place for these young people because potentially what they're going home to is a less than ideal situation for them to feel safe and, and to be protected and heard.
Rebecca Cooper [21:17]: Yeah, I think, um, what I'm also noticing is that done well, this really is just good relational pedagogy. But I'm also conscious of the fact that to do that well can take quite a bit out of the educator.
So how can you, you know, if this is the way you're going to operate on a daily basis and you may be in a space where there are quite a number of students in your class who have experienced trauma, and as you've said, that's individualised, and so you're, as an educator, managing that in really specific and individual ways.
What do you do to sustain yourself and your own wellbeing? How do you manage that?
Emily Berger [21:56]: It has to be a system. It has to be a system that sits around the educator to support the educator. So we would never, Yeehana, I would never sit here and advocate and say, well, you know, we'll give some training to a teacher or an early childhood educator and send them on their way.
It has to have systems of support. It has to have strong, committed leaders. It has to have policies that sit behind the educator to support them in terms of what their role is and where they hand off responsibility to another professional. It has to have all those things in place.
We have to think about wellbeing support for the teachers as well who are doing this work. There's a whole range of things that need to sit behind the educator. Unfortunately, there's a misconception in the research and practice in trauma-informed practice that it's just about professional development.
And historically it has been about professional development, and that's always a good place to start because we want to encourage educators to know about the impacts and, and how to respond. And so professional development has a huge role to play in upskilling and making people aware and have some skills, some basic skills to be able to support young people.
But it needs so much more than that.
Rebecca Cooper [23:10]: When you say it needs more than that, is it about getting more allied health professionals in schools? Is it— what's the more, Emily?
Emily Berger [23:19]: The more is all of those things and above. Yes. So more allied health support is absolutely needed in schools. We need to make sure that we have support, mental health support for the young person, but also for the teacher as well. We need to have professional development, but we also need to have follow-up training sessions, and we need to have follow-up mentorship and supervision of teachers as well, debriefing and briefing teachers, so opportunities to talk and share ideas.
We need all of those things to be happening beyond just, I've participated in this PD and I'm good to go, because it's just not fit for purpose and it doesn't work.
Yihan Sun [24:02]: Yeah, I felt like for early childhood education specifically, because all my research are in this area and Emily, it's more broader in school But I think the role clarity is definitely a big thing. In our research with Australian educators, we really wanted to understand their needs and how we can better support them to work with these trauma-exposed children.
I think one of the biggest things that come up was they just don't know what is within their role responsibility and where is their role boundary. For many educators where they started to work in this space because we have no training in the initial teacher education.
So they're not taught what they can do. So if they— if it's their first time to work with trauma-impacted children, they're sort of really lost in what is their responsibility. So I think having a clear responsibility guide would be really helpful. And then for those educators working in really vulnerable communities, the percentage of trauma can be really high.
The amount of pressure, the emotional work, day in, day out is huge. We have to acknowledge that it's challenging work, it's tough. Um, and for these educators, they are really good educators, they wanted to help, but they tended to do more than they should a lot of times.
So I think having clear boundaries also would help with their well-being. But we don't have an answer. We've been exploring through multiple research, multiple studies, co-design workshops Perhaps we have no answer so far, but I think that's an area we need to keep exploring.
And when we talk about role clarity and role responsibility, that is often when we also bring in the lens of cross-disciplinary collaboration. Emily has been a big advocate for the multi-tiered systems of support. And if we look at that tiered model, like, I pretty much advocate that educators' responsibility at Tier 1, provide the universal kind of support, universal trauma-informed support.
And trauma-informed practice essentially is universal approach. It's not trauma-specific and that could fit in Tier 2 or Tier 3. So I felt like from Tier 2 to Tier 3, that's when we should bring in professionals with expertise in trauma like mental health professionals and how we could enable that, that's the systems work.
And the third point is the resource awareness, just having the awareness of where to seek support when they needed it. I think it's a big protective a factor for educator wellbeing. And we were trying to help by compiling a list of available trauma-informed resources in Australia and internationally so educators could have a reference point, at least knowing where to seek support when they needed it.
I think that would help with their wellbeing because that comes up a lot in our needs assessment study and resource awareness is a factor strongly associated with educator wellbeing.
Rebecca Cooper [26:57]: Yeah, I know our pre-service teachers here at Monash do have the oppor— some of them have the opportunity to have a professional experience that is particularly trauma-informed and works in schools that are using trauma-informed practice. And I know that's one of the bits of feedback we get from them is that it's being aware of who they can seek help from and what they can seek help from and where that exists, just where it sits.
So I think that that is a really, really important piece of just being able to be active with the trauma-informed practice in the first place, but then making sure that you're not overstepping that point of your skill set, but then making sure that you are finding ways to get students the help that they will need.
Emily Berger [27:44]: And that's where, when we were talking before, that's where it's really important to have this multi-pronged approach. You know, we talk about a whole school approach, to have a multi-pronged approach that Yes, students can have those experiences on a practicum experience, or they can participate in PD and they can learn a little bit about the roles and responsibilities.
Or there could be a policy that talks about the roles and responsibilities and delineates between those, which is another effective approach. But also we need to continually talk about it and give teachers the opportunity to talk and talk about how they responded and would I have done it differently.
So reflective practice, you know, could I have done it differently? I feel like I would have done this differently. Differently, or maybe I just overstepped just a little bit there, or maybe I could have done more. These are not easy decisions to make, and we are asking teachers to do things that are, are challenging and challenging conversations to have.
And as we've mentioned before, it does differ depending on the student and the situation. So teachers need to be given an opportunity and a platform to explore ideas, continue to build their professional practice in this area, rather than just one experience and that's it, and, and we feel like you're ready to go and, and support the plethora of experiences that is trauma.
Rebecca Cooper [29:03]: I think there's a space obviously for just teacher talk and almost a sense of communities of practice within schools working around trauma-informed ideas and that opportunity, yes professional learning, but that opportunity of almost self-directed professional learning for the teacher to perhaps try things and just have the opportunity to be able to debrief them.
Emily Berger [29:27]: I think there's been some good examples where people quite often refer to them as champions in schools. And so it does take dedicated teachers who are quite often doing this work, you know, trying to bring teams together, trying to build trauma-informed practice in their schools.
It doesn't stop at professional development. It grows and it can grow to be something amazing, but it does take the dedication of teachers. And, you know, quite often they're referred to as being champions of trauma-informed practice. And then from one champion or two champions, teams can grow and motivation can grow in this space.
Rebecca Cooper [30:09]: So, Yee Han, if there was something you wish school leaders knew about trauma-informed practice, what would it be?
Yihan Sun [30:16]: Hmm, that's a good question.
Rebecca Cooper [30:19]: Um, Emily, I'm coming for you.
Yihan Sun [30:20]: Yeah. Um, I just wanted to add on to that before I answer that. I felt like there's a of clinical supervision that we could explore because working with trauma-impacted children, which is different from trauma-informed practice in a way, but working with trauma-impacted children is emotionally demanding work.
Other professionals like social workers and mental health professionals who do that type of work, they get clinical supervision. I think that's a layer of support for teachers which we don't have, and teachers spend sustained amount of time with these children. I think that's definitely an area we to look into that would be really good support for teachers.
And for school leaders, of course, we know without organisational change, individual efforts, it's very hard to sustain. We have great teachers wanting to do great work, be champions in trauma-informed practice, but without school, like, organisational policy support, resources to enable that to happen, it's really hard.
So I think I think school leaders equally should be trauma-informed. Like, everyone's on the same page, just like Emily said, the whole school approach. Everyone's on the same page, shared language, shared lens of looking at children's behaviour, clear policy, clear referral process, established collaboration with external mental health organisations.
So when teachers need support, it's right there. I think make the whole process easier. It's probably leaders could do to make teachers' life easier.
Emily Berger [31:54]: Yeah, I completely agree. So I think leaders need to be across all components and, and really leading from the front in, in all components of a whole school approach. As Yi Han said, you know, in terms of developing policy, promoting professional development, promoting groups where people can come together and talk about their experiences and continue to learn, so opening up space for teachers to be able to attend attend professional development and attend ongoing supervision.
Some of the research that we've done has also shown that teachers find it would be helpful as well if school leaders were trained in debriefing, and so supporting that debriefing process. The other thing I think is really important for school leaders to be on the forefront of is promoting and supporting teacher wellbeing.
We touched on the importance of teacher wellbeing in this space, and so school leaders need to set a good example role of supporting their own mental wellbeing as well as supporting mental wellbeing of teachers. So what initiatives are in place in schools? What policies are in place?
We have a student wellbeing policy. Do we have a teacher wellbeing policy? Those two things should go hand in hand.
Yihan Sun [33:04]: Yeah, I think it's really a parallel process. Just to add on that, like how teacher experience in the school environment really translates to how children experience within the teacher. So school, the school environment created by the school leaders with all these sort of supports to support teachers both professionally, to have the capacity to work with these children, and psychologically to sustain their work and be, be well, to have the capacity to co-regulate when needed, it's
really gonna impact on how teachers show up for children. So it's really a parallel process. Us. Yeah.
Rebecca Cooper [33:42]: So Emily, if you're a school leader or a teacher who's wanting to find out more about this or make a start with bringing trauma-informed practice into your school, where should you look?
Emily Berger [33:52]: I think the best place to start is with our trauma-informed lab that we have in the faculty. So we have the Trauma-Informed Education and Research Impact Lab within the faculty, and within that lab our sole mission is to add to and improve the evidence-based practice around delivering trauma-informed practice in schools.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of programs out there that aren't evidence-based, and so our mission is to add evidence base where there isn't any.
Rebecca Cooper [34:20]: Thank you both so much. Your insights today have really clearly indicated that trauma-informed practice is not something extra to add on to an already full workload, but it's actually a way of understanding what's happening for students and responding with intention. When students feel safe and supported, they're better able to engage and learn.
Many teachers are already doing this in their everyday practice, but feeling clear on how to respond and what sits within your role can make it much more manageable. And it's not something teachers should carry on their own. Real impact comes from shared responsibility, strong systems, and the right support in place for both students and educators.
We've included a wealth of practical resources in our show notes that support your teaching journey. Be sure to check them out. If you're enjoying the show, don't forget to subscribe, rate and review and follow us on social media. We are grateful for the support of Monash University's Faculty of Education in producing this podcast.
For more information on short courses and undergraduate and postgraduate study options, head to monash.edu.au/education/learnmore. Thanks again for listening to Let's Talk Teaching.
