Session 5.3 Master Classes
Tracks
Track 3
| Saturday, November 2, 2024 |
| 11:05 AM - 12:55 PM |
| Meeting room P7 |
Overview
Meeting room P7
Details
11:05am – 12.00pm Harmony in understanding: Forging strong partnerships between schools and communities for Trauma-Aware support - Mr Mathew Portell, Founder of the Trauma Informed Educators Network, USA
12:05pm – 1:00pm Students speak: A co-generational model for empowering youth voice in educational decision making - Prof Michael Gregory, Harvard Law School, USA (REPEAT OF SESSION 5.6)
Speaker
Mr Mathew Portell
Founder
Trauma Informed Educators Network
Harmony in understanding: Forging strong partnerships between schools and communities for Trauma-Aware support
11:05 AM - 12:00 PMAbstract
Join Mathew to explore the dynamic interplay between schools and communities in fostering trauma-informed support systems. He will discuss the pivotal role of collaboration in creating a supportive environment for individuals affected by trauma and will delve into the essential elements that pave the way for effective partnerships, emphasizing the need for schools and communities to harmonize their efforts. This discussion will highlight the mutual benefits that arise when schools and local communities come together to create a unified, trauma-aware support network. Drawing from real-world examples and successful case studies, Mathew will showcase the transformative impact of cohesive partnerships. From shared resources and knowledge to the development of joint strategies, he will explore how these collaborations can create a nurturing environment that supports individuals dealing with trauma.
Biography
Mathew Portell utilises his experience as an educator, school administrator, podcaster, writer, and international speaker to impact education globally as an innovator and pioneer of trauma-informed education. In his tenure as the principal of Fall-Hamilton Elementary in Nashville, Tennessee, he drew from the most current neuroscience to transform the school into an international model school for trauma-informed practices. Mathew founded the Trauma Informed Educators Network, a global network of over 31,000 practitioners, which he supports with a weekly podcast and yearly conference. Mathew’s passion and experience have made him a globally sought-after keynote speaker and facilitator. In his current role as Director of Communities with PACEs Connection, Mathew supports cross-sector community collaboration to inform and support the development of resilient and trauma-informed communities. Portell has received several recognitions for his work, but the most notable was the Elementary Principal of the Year in 2021 for Metro Nashville Public Schools, a region that serves nearly 90,000 students.
Prof Michael Gregory
Clinical Professor of Law
Harvard Law School
Students speak: A co-generational model for empowering youth voice in educational decision making (repeat of session 5.6)
12:05 PM - 1:00 PMAbstract
Students are in the best position to understand what they need. Yet decisions about schooling are often made without listening deeply to students. This disconnect can amplify the feeling of powerlessness many students feel and even exacerbate traumatic symptoms. Conversely, increasing opportunities for student voice and agency in decision making processes can enhance students’ feeling of belonging and improve their academic achievement.
This Master Class will introduce Students Speak, an initiative of the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI) that supports students from historically marginalized groups in the U.S., including many who have endured traumatic experiences, to raise their voices about what they need in order to do well in school while strengthening their advocacy skills. The session will share the details of an innovative mentoring process that supports students of all backgrounds and abilities to prepare and deliver testimonial statements about their school experiences to lawmakers.
Participants will learn Students Speak’s protocol for supporting students to
1) create and share stories about their school experiences;
2) develop self-knowledge from these stories about what they need in order to do well in school;
3) prepare and deliver written testimonial statements to lawmakers; and
4) identify key themes in their statements that resonate with common themes articulated by other students.
Participants will also understand key priorities that secondary school students in the Boston, Massachusetts area have identified as important for them to do well in school. Finally, participants will become familiar with and practice applying Hart’s Ladder of Participation, a framework for understanding and creating ethical and empowering youth-adult collaborations.
Group conversation in the session will focus on
1) surfacing participants’ expertise and experiences with centering the voices of young people in their own work and
2) discussing the implications of these efforts for trauma-sensitive practice.
This Master Class will introduce Students Speak, an initiative of the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI) that supports students from historically marginalized groups in the U.S., including many who have endured traumatic experiences, to raise their voices about what they need in order to do well in school while strengthening their advocacy skills. The session will share the details of an innovative mentoring process that supports students of all backgrounds and abilities to prepare and deliver testimonial statements about their school experiences to lawmakers.
Participants will learn Students Speak’s protocol for supporting students to
1) create and share stories about their school experiences;
2) develop self-knowledge from these stories about what they need in order to do well in school;
3) prepare and deliver written testimonial statements to lawmakers; and
4) identify key themes in their statements that resonate with common themes articulated by other students.
Participants will also understand key priorities that secondary school students in the Boston, Massachusetts area have identified as important for them to do well in school. Finally, participants will become familiar with and practice applying Hart’s Ladder of Participation, a framework for understanding and creating ethical and empowering youth-adult collaborations.
Group conversation in the session will focus on
1) surfacing participants’ expertise and experiences with centering the voices of young people in their own work and
2) discussing the implications of these efforts for trauma-sensitive practice.
Biography
Michael Gregory is Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (HLS) and a Member of the Faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is the Faculty Director of the Youth Advocacy & Policy Lab (Y-Lab), the mission of which is to advocate for child- and youth-facing systems that are antiracist, healing-centered, and trauma-sensitive. Y-Lab prioritises elevating the voices of young people as it uses legal and policy tools to transform public systems, including schools, that impact them and their families. Through the Y-Lab’s Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI), Gregory supervises law students to represent families of traumatized students in the special education system and to learn and practice the skills of legislative lawyering to advance a public policy agenda for trauma-sensitive schools.
As a result of TLPI’s advocacy, Massachusetts enacted the Safe and Supportive Schools Framework statute in 2014, a first-of-its-kind law that creates a statewide community of practice to support schools and districts to create safe and supportive whole-school learning environments that serve as a foundation for all students to succeed. In 2020, TLPI launched the Students Speak initiative to ensure that policymakers in Massachusetts hear directly from secondary school students about what they need in order to do well in school.
TLPI hopes to grow this initiative into a statewide movement of young people who are empowered to lead the way in improving their schools. Gregory is co-author of TLPI’s two landmark publications Helping Traumatized Children Learn, Volumes 1 and 2 and has also published in the area of special education law. He holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Brown University. He and his husband are proud parents of an eight-year-old daughter who attends a school for students with dyslexia and who loves dancing to Kidz Bop videos and eating chocolate ice cream.
Session chair
Samantha Donovan
School Supervisor
South East Region
