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It is apparent that schools are becoming increasingly concerned about their role in supporting mental health and wellbeing for the pupils within their care. Through this, there is a growing discourse in Trauma Informed Theory. This, however, is often limited to contexts outside of the UK, or is focused on agencies outside of education. As such, there is a gap in the literature for a piece of research which focuses on Trauma Informed strategies within schools in the UK. Therefore, any new piece of research based around this is pioneering. This paper explores the strengths and weaknesses of current Trauma Informed strategies being used by schools within the UK. Using the researchers own educational setting as a case study, this research will explore the ability for pupils to adopt socially appropriate behaviours based on trauma informed strategies implemented. Interviews and a focus group were used to identify themes, perceptions and insights into the current trauma informed strategies used by the case study school. This data collection, combined with analysis of behavioural data and field observations, yielded results which showed the vital need for these strategies to be maintained, with some realistic adaptations to allow them to develop and make progress. hrough qualitative analysis of interviews and focus groups, analysing school data, as well as field observations, the following questions have been answered: How is Trauma Informed Theory carried out within the educational setting of the school? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Trauma Informed Theory within the school? What recommendations can be made to allow the school to build upon the Trauma Informed Theory?

As a case study, the recommendations are directly relative to the community to which I am reporting. Throughout the dissertation process, I have worked closely with several leaders and staff within the school community. Support has been given to carry out this case study research, and because of this, access to data and observations has been granted permission, and actively encouraged, to ensure effective recommendations are established. The impact of this, will be an ability for leaders to make timely, manageable, cost-effective changes to small aspects of these trauma informed strategies. This will allow progress to be made, which will ultimately help some pupils at the school who experience traumatic events. For the school, an important part of this research was dissemination of the findings. This was done, initially, through a fifteen-minute presentation, which took place during an SLT meeting[1]. Leaders within this meeting included the Principle, Vice Principle, and Safeguarding Lead. From this, some recommendations have been actioned by leaders for the next academic year. At the heart of the community I have chosen, is a school ethos based on Trauma Informed Theory. Through whole school CPD on Trauma Informed Theory with an external specialist, I was introduced to the concept. It was from this point that I became passionate about improving my own practice whilst being mindful of the impacts of trauma amongst students, and my role in reducing those impacts as best as possible. In my own personal reflections, I was proud of the work my educational setting has done to provide opportunities to support these vulnerable students and wished to help progress these opportunities to make them more meaningful. It was then clear that the most significant piece of research, for myself and the community I worked in, was to reflect and recommend on Trauma Informed Strategies within education. The needs of the community, in relation to Trauma Informed Theory, which were uncovered by the research, were threefold. Firstly, it uncovered that partnerships must be strengthened between those who lead the trauma informed strategies, and the rest of the school. Data was unanimous in highlighting the lack of understanding between staff about the purpose, function and objectives of the strategies were. Secondly, analysis showed that these trauma informed strategies need to be more skilfully staffed to ensure they run effectively, whilst allowing staff working within these areas to be given appropriate training. Finally, a more robust way of measuring the impact of the trauma informed strategies must be developed by leaders, which should be fed back to staff to further strengthen partnerships. Through the data analysis process, it was possible to generate recommendations. This will be impactful upon the community since these have been generated to be as realistic as possible, for them to be embedded straight away, at the start of the next academic year. For these recommendations to have an impact, it was vital for them to be cost effective, and manageable to for school. Taking into consideration financial concerns nationally within education, it would be futile to create a list of recommended changes which were costly. To allow the community to recognise the impact of the study, it was also important to ensure recommendations were able to be enforced quickly, based on the current structure of the school, to allow progress in the trauma informed strategies to start as soon as possible. Through these guarantees, the recommendations will be impactful on the community. Most importantly, this piece of research will allow vulnerable students who access the trauma informed strategies due to currently dealing with traumatic events or dealing with the lasting impacts of past traumatic events, to feel further supported within school. This is due to these recommendations providing a useful starting point for greater organisation within the areas where these strategies operate. This will aid the school in the short term, as there should be less commotion around the building as these students will be in effective sessions. Also, in the long term, it will allow students to have built meaningful relationships with staff using these trauma informed strategies. They will have formed a greater sense of self and learnt to consistently work in a team to positively support their peers. These are things which trauma informed theorists believe are most effective in overcoming, for students to leave school with a greater chance of success and wellbeing.