Journal of Trauma Studies in Education
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description: The Journal of Trauma Studies in Education (JTSE) is an online open-access academic peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the generation of knowledge regarding mental health and well-being, with a focus on the impact of traumatic stress within the context of Pre K-12 and Postsecondary Education. The journal accepts manuscripts on a rolling basis from varying perspectives within education that critically explore the nature of trauma, as well as preventative and restorative approaches to trauma responses in all education stakeholders.
publisher: Appalachian State University
language: en
publication name: Journal of Trauma Studies in Education
issn: 2832-1723
copyright: Upon publication articles are immediately and freely available to anyone, anywhere, at any time. All published articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 Unported License. All articles are permanently available online. The final version of articles may be posted to an institutional repository or to the author's own website as long as the article includes a link back to the original article posted on JTSE.
items: Introduction to the Special Issue
items: Culturally Responsive, Trauma-Informed Care for Newcomer Students
items: The Iterative Process of Developing a School-Based Intervention to Take Actions Against Racism
items: Integrating Race-Conscious Professional Development as a Trauma-Informed Practice
items: Navigating the Intersection
items: School Counselors’ Perspectives on Trauma-Informed Psychoeducational Assessment and Counseling Practices
items: MONARCH: Examining a Model for Middle Level and Secondary Trauma Informed Education
items: Pre-Service Training in Trauma-Informed Care for Educators: Exploring Changes in Knowledge, Attitudes, and Preparedness
items: Measuring the Use of Trauma-Informed Care in Education Settings: A Scoping Review
items: Changing Attitudes about Trauma-Informed Care Using an Online Training Module
items: Mental Health or Discipline?
items: Using Hip Hop as a tool to Navigate and Heal While Under Attack
items: “Working at the Speed of Trust”
items: Equity in North Carolina’s SHLT-003
items: Towards Racial Equity in Trauma-Informed Schools
items: “I Didn’t Think Many Teachers Cared”
items: Moving from Informing to Transforming
items: Equity-Centered and Trauma-Informed Teacher Education
items: Advancing Culturally Responsive, Trauma-Informed School Mental Health Systems through a National Learning Collaborative
items: Becoming CRITICAL CREATIVES
items: We All We Got
items: The Role of Spirituality in Healing from Sexual and Relationship Violence in Higher Education
items: What Indigenous Futurity Can Teach Us about Healing Sexual Violence for Minoritized Students in Higher Education
items: Exploring Radical Healing among Asian/American College Women Survivors of Sexual and Relationship Violence
items: Shades of Brown
items: Radical Hope for Radical Healing
items: Trauma Reverberations
items: Grappling with Life After Loss as Educator Leaders
items: The Racial Melancholia of Un-grieved Endings

Introduction to the Special Issue
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description: Trauma-informed approaches have become widely adopted in schools as a response to growing student mental and behavioral health needs. While these approaches have shifted educator responses from punitive discipline toward relational and supportive practices, they have often failed to address the structural and identity-based conditions that produce and exacerbate trauma, including racism, cultural invalidation, and inequitable access to resources. This special issue advances a Culturally Responsive, Anti-Racist, and Equitable (CARE) framework as a necessary evolution of trauma-informed education. Drawing on a diverse set of empirical and conceptual contributions, the articles collectively position trauma not only as an individual psychological experience but also as a response to systemic inequities embedded within school policies, practices, and power structures. This introduction synthesizes key themes across the issue, highlighting how CARE-oriented trauma-informed work requires structural reform, relational trust, shared power with students and families, and adult critical consciousness.
subject: Letter from the Editor
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creator: Jerica Knox
creator: Brooksie Sturdivant
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Jerica Knox, Brooksie Sturdivant https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: i
ending page: viii
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v4i3.396

Culturally Responsive, Trauma-Informed Care for Newcomer Students
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description: Culturally responsive service delivery is an essential component of trauma-informed schools. While there is clinical guidance, how culturally responsive care is operationalized in practice is not as well understood. The current paper provides practice-based insights into the application of culturally responsive, care in the context of eight school-based health centers (SBHCs). Unique student groups served by the SBHCs include newcomers and non-English speaking students. Using a research-practice partnership process, including a focus group and key informant interviews with clinicians, supervisors, and SBHC leadership, the paper provides descriptive information and case examples of practice elements related to different components of integrated behavioral health care in schools. These include: 1) engagement strategies for newcomers, 2) culturally responsive mental health identification practices, 3) adaptations to evidence-based trauma treatments, and 4) facilitative organization processes for engaging in culturally responsive care (e.g., training, multi-disciplinary workgroups, leadership support, workflow processes).
subject: Special Issue Articles
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creator: Erum Nadeem
creator: Vanessa Ringle
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 151
ending page: 179
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v4i3.347

The Iterative Process of Developing a School-Based Intervention to Take Actions Against Racism
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description: Racism threatens the mental and physical health of students of color and may lead to re-occurring harm without intervention. We developed ‘Actions Against Racism’ professional development trainings using a trauma-informed racial socialization lens to provide educators with proactive strategies to disrupt the negative psychosocial developmental outcomes associated with racism. This paper describes the iterative process of developing this intervention through four phases over the course of four years. The primary takeaway from this work is that developing and implementing interventions to disrupt racism and promote healing must take into account the implementation context, with consideration to balancing the urgency of supporting students amidst the necessity of taking time to build trust and authentic commitment to disrupting racism among staff.
subject: Special Issue Articles
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creator: Lindsay Poole
creator: Danika Perry
creator: Zumana Noor
creator: Tia Barnes
creator: Kim Graham
creator: Danielle Hatchimonji
creator: Kira Branch
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 196
ending page: 221
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v4i3.330

Integrating Race-Conscious Professional Development as a Trauma-Informed Practice
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description: This qualitative study examines the influence of a race-conscious, trauma-informed professional development (TIPD) fellowship among Black educators serving majority-Black students. While research on trauma-informed education is expanding, little focuses on race-conscious PD for educators of racially marginalized students. In Spring 2023, four Black educators at a southeastern public charter high school participated in a trauma-informed fellowship grounded in racial awareness, culturally responsive pedagogy, and equity-centered approaches. The program included critical discourse groups, trauma-sensitive strategies, and reflective journaling. Preliminary findings highlight the development of a trauma-informed affinity group, critical reflection on internalized savior complexes, and personal self-discovery. Educators processed racial stress collectively and documented professional growth. This model fosters trauma-informed educators and enhances racial consciousness. Implications highlight the need for expanding race-conscious TIPD to include allyship training for non-Black educators and creating "third spaces" for Black students that could promote racial equity and empower students to challenge systemic inequities.
subject: Special Issue Articles
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creator: Jasmine Haynes
creator: Jessica Scott
creator: Shantel Crosby
creator: Kathryn Tillett
creator: Alisia Collins
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 222
ending page: 239
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v4i3.332

Navigating the Intersection
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description: This study explores the intersection of imposter phenomenon and workplace trauma among women-identified, non-instructional staff in higher education. While imposter phenomenon has traditionally been framed as an internal struggle among high-achieving women, this research repositions it within the broader context of institutional structures and trauma. Using a cross-sectional survey of 276 respondents, the study reveals that over 63% of respondents reported experiencing workplace or secondary trauma. These experiences include crisis response, bullying, microaggressions, and direct violence. Analysis using a Chi-square and Independent Samples t-Test demonstrates a significant relationship between trauma and imposter feelings. Women who experienced trauma reported significantly higher imposter phenomenon scores. The results suggest that imposter phenomenon is not merely a psychological issue but is deeply influenced by organizational culture and systemic inequities. This research contributes to the limited literature on trauma among non-faculty higher education staff, and calls for institutional reforms to create safer, more inclusive environments.
subject: Research Articles
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creator: Angela Clark-Taylor
creator: Emily T. Creamer
creator: Susan VanDeventer Iverson
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Angela Clark-Taylor, Emily T. Creamer, Susan VanDeventer Iverson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-04-30
publication date: 2026-04-30
starting page: 38
ending page: 60
doi: 10.70085/

School Counselors’ Perspectives on Trauma-Informed Psychoeducational Assessment and Counseling Practices
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description: School counselors undertake psychoeducational assessment and counseling to support the learning and well-being of students. Little is known about how school counselors use trauma-informed practices when undertaking psychoeducational assessment and counseling with students impacted by trauma. If school counselors do not use trauma-informed practices, they may cause further harm and provide ineffective interventions. Informed by the ecological model of professional school counseling, this qualitative study explored how eleven Australian school counselors used trauma-informed practices in psychoeducational assessment and counseling. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Two key findings emerged: cognitive tests may not be a fair and reliable measure of the cognition of students impacted by trauma; and school counselors must be culturally responsive in their approach to psychoeducational assessment and counseling. School counseling preparation programs must embed trauma-informed practices and supervisors of school counselors must support their staff in implementing trauma-informed practices in their work.
subject: Research Articles
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creator: Meegan Brown
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-04-30
publication date: 2026-04-30
starting page: 15
ending page: 37
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v5i1.346

MONARCH: Examining a Model for Middle Level and Secondary Trauma Informed Education
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description: This study examines the MONARCH intervention model for trauma-informed teaching to understand the needs and experiences of school staff undergoing implementation. From 2023 to 2024, school staff from 12 public, middle and high schools in a large urban city participated in the MONARCH intervention. A subgroup of staff from each school participated in focus groups before and during the MONARCH implementation. Focus groups with teachers, support staff, and administrators were facilitated by project evaluators, recorded, transcribed, and coded for similar themes. Findings yielded numerous themes focused on challenges with policies for student behaviors, fostering school engagement, supporting the needs of Black and foster youth, and successes and barriers to the MONARCH model implementation. We discuss implications of these findings in regard to the use of trauma-informed school practice in middle and secondary school settings to increase healing and equitable practices for the most vulnerable student populations.
subject: Special Issue Articles
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creator: Shantel Crosby
creator: Cheryl Somers
creator: Angelique Day
creator: Anthony Gomez
creator: Tamarie Willis
creator: Kathryn Tillett
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 58
ending page: 79
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v4i3.331

Pre-Service Training in Trauma-Informed Care for Educators: Exploring Changes in Knowledge, Attitudes, and Preparedness
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description: As trauma exposure is highly prevalent among children and adolescents, educators are in a key position to deliver trauma-informed care (TIC) in school settings. However, few undergraduate teacher education programs provide sufficient education to emerging educators in trauma and its impact on child development and in TIC. As a result, many pre-service educators feel unprepared to meet the needs of students with trauma-related emotional and behavioral challenges. The current study aims to explore a cohort of pre-service educators’ previous experiences with training in trauma and TIC, as well as to examine the impact of a basic training curriculum on their knowledge and attitudes related to trauma and TIC. Findings of the study show that most pre-service educators received little to no previous training in trauma and TIC. However, participating in a basic trauma training curriculum shows promise in building foundational knowledge and positive attitudes towards integrating TIC in the classroom.
subject: Research Articles
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creator: Saadia Elahi
creator: Anna Sroka
creator: Margaret Meldrum
creator: Karen Gouze
creator: Colleen Cicchetti
creator: Caryn Curry
creator: Tali Raviv
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-04-30
publication date: 2026-04-30
starting page: 104
ending page: 126
doi: 10.70085/

Measuring the Use of Trauma-Informed Care in Education Settings: A Scoping Review
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description: Trauma-informed care is increasingly being used in education settings. Along with an increase in the use of trauma-informed care comes a need to measure the use of trauma-informed care. We conducted a scoping literature review to explore what measures of trauma-informed care in schools are being used, with a focus on which aspects of trauma-informed care the tools are measuring. By searching the published literature, we identified 20 unique tools used to measure the use of trauma-informed care. We found that most of these tools focused on individual responses as opposed to system-level responses to trauma, and that components of trauma-informed equity-centered care were primarily not included in the tools. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and end with future directions to improve the measurement of trauma-informed care in educational settings.
subject: Research Articles
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creator: Mia Chudzik
creator: Emily Holden
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-04-30
publication date: 2026-04-30
starting page: 61
ending page: 87
doi: 10.70085/

Changing Attitudes about Trauma-Informed Care Using an Online Training Module
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description: Despite high rates of children being exposed to potentially traumatic events, there are many barriers towards getting settings (e.g., schools) to adopt the principles of trauma-informed care (TIC). This is an adaptive approach that emphasizes the need for settings to be universally accommodating to children who have experienced trauma. Training providers on TIC is essential for shifting attitudes and instantiating these principles into practice. Given the logistical difficulties of in-person training, a free online training module using SAMHSA’s trauma-informed care model was developed and deployed. Results from the study of this module suggest that the training was effective in significantly shifting participants’ attitudes towards trauma-informed care. Additionally, these gains were seen regardless of workplace experience, and initial racial differences were resolved with similar post-test scores across demographic backgrounds. These findings suggest the viability of digital training as a low-cost option for disseminating trauma-informed care values.
subject: Research Articles
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creator: Catherine Corr
creator: Jonathan Bystrynski
creator: Justin Kern
creator: Deserai Miller
creator: Robyn DiPietro-Wells
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-04-30
publication date: 2026-04-30
starting page: 88
ending page: 103
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v5i1.126

Mental Health or Discipline?
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description: Despite increased concerns for mental health among Black students and ongoing concerns related to severe disciplinary practices used with Black students, limited research has explored perspectives of how these issues may intersect to impact suicide risk. We recruited 13 professionals (3 administrators, 10 school counselors) in a southeastern state in the United States to complete focus group interviews examining beliefs and attitudes around racial disproportionality in mental health care access, referrals, and disciplinary practices. Thematic analysis revealed that while participants acknowledged efforts to address disparities for Black students, they identified urgent gaps in faculty training, culturally responsive practices, and comprehensive school-based mental health services. Framed by a Biopsychosocial Ecological Model and a Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) approach, findings highlight the structural inequities can contribute to mental health issues for Black students and call for policy, practice, and intervention strategies for reducing suicide risk in Black youth.
subject: Special Issue Articles
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creator: Dana Griffin
creator: Constance Lindsay
creator: Marisa Marraccini
creator: Telieha Middleton
creator: Jay Mathis
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 80
ending page: 107
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v4i3.341

Using Hip Hop as a tool to Navigate and Heal While Under Attack
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description: Hip-hop culture is historically and continues to be a vehicle for creating a platform of expression for marginalized, oppressed, and vulnerable groups. Rooted in Blackness, hip-hop has long utilized storytelling to explore social, economic, and environmental justice content and highlight the interconnectedness of privilege and oppression. Through the lens of Hip-Hop music, art, spoken word, poetry, and more, the culture has explored the social and political history of the United States including the challenges of both individual and systematic discrimination. This framework provides the structure to develop an understanding of the various discourses of social justice and examine what anti-oppressive practice may look like in any setting. Furthermore, a Hip-hop framework allows for the use of self-reflection, oral and written communication, and creative expression to demonstrate a better understanding of how storytelling in hip-hop culture exposes social isolation, economic disadvantage, structural inequality, and lack of access to power.
subject: Practitioner & Theoretical Perspectives
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creator: Ebony Perez
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-04-30
publication date: 2026-04-30
starting page: 142
ending page: 162
doi: 10.70085/

“Working at the Speed of Trust”
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description: Availability of effective, culturally responsive interventions is urgently needed to support immigrant and refugee youth resilience and mental health. Critical to successful scale-up efforts is evidence of barriers and facilitators to the implementation of multi-tier interventions that integrate cultural brokers into existing infrastructure. Data sources for this process evaluation included 10 interviews, two focus groups, and team meeting notes from 2021-2024. Modified grounded theory methods, reflective memos, and data triangulation generated a conceptual model that highlights the central role of cultivating trust and attending to power within and across partnering agencies during implementation of a manualized, evidence-informed, and community-engaged mental health intervention. This was especially important for cultural brokers, who are critical to the delivery of culturally responsive services yet vulnerable to marginalization and burnout. This novel conceptual model can inform future efforts to implement and scale culturally responsive interventions, sustain cultural brokers, and avoid replicating marginalizing power structures.
subject: Special Issue Articles
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creator: Laura Soltani
creator: Johara Suleiman
creator: Jasmine Banegas
creator: Hopewell Hodges
creator: Saida Abdi
creator: Mimi Choy-Brown
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 126
ending page: 150
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v4i3.318

Equity in North Carolina’s SHLT-003
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description: This study examines North Carolina’s (NC) primary trauma-informed education (TIE) policy, SHLT-003, which governs school-based mental health plans in PK-12 education. Using culturally responsive, antiracist, equity-based, and trauma-informed (CARE-TIE) frameworks, qualitative analysis reveals that SHLT-003 is compliance-driven, emphasizing mental health and social-emotional learning (SEL) without embedding equity and deeper culturally responsive or antiracist principles. While the policy acknowledges trauma sensitivity, it lacks explicit equity-based mandates and provides minimal guidance for district-level implementation, potentially reinforcing systemic disparities. Findings highlight the need for structural policy revisions to ensure consistent, equity-centered application across NC public schools. Recommendations include integrating culturally responsive language, antiracist frameworks, and accountability structures that uplift lived experiences, to enhance accessibility, inclusivity, and systemic transformation in trauma-informed education.
subject: Special Issue Articles
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creator: Raketa Ouedraogo-Thomas
creator: Samantha Rummage Massey
creator: Lesa King Bullins
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 1
ending page: 26
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v4i3.322

Towards Racial Equity in Trauma-Informed Schools
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description: Consensus regarding elements of a trauma-informed school (TIS), essential for promoting desired youth outcomes and racial equity is lacking. This study aimed to establish consensus on TIS intervention components and implementation strategies that are: 1) important for youth outcomes, 2) important for racial equity in outcomes, and 3) feasible to implement. We utilized a three-round Delphi survey, and recruited participants (n=49) with relevant TIS expertise. Participants provided importance and feasibility ratings on a set of TIS components and strategies (n=55) related to organizational/policy reforms, workforce professional development, and educational/clinical practices. Approximately 90% of components reached consensus on high importance for youth outcomes and racial equity. However, despite broad consensus on the importance of most components, fewer, approximately 50%, were viewed as highly feasible to implement in practice. Findings in relation to extant TIS literature, and implications for responding equitably to youths’ needs are discussed.
subject: Special Issue Articles
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creator: Z. Ayotola Onipede
creator: Tamar Kodish
creator: Anna S. Lau
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 27
ending page: 57
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v4i3.344

“I Didn’t Think Many Teachers Cared”
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description: Student voice has been largely absent in the trauma-informed schools movement. Student perspectives on trauma-informed approaches are particularly critical for students who identify as Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). BIPOC students consistently report more negative school experiences than their white peers, including negative school climate and lower levels of school equity and personal belonging. This article describes a youth participatory action research (YPAR) program with 18 BIPOC middle school students. We describe how YPAR was integrated with trauma-informed principles to engage student voice. We outline student-led research projects and results related to core features of trauma-informed schools. Finally, we describe how students used their findings to advocate for change within their schools. We conclude that YPAR presents a promising avenue through which school leaders and their partners can directly and meaningfully involve young people in the creation of trauma-informed schools.
subject: Special Issue Articles
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creator: Jesse Chanin
creator: Stacy Overstreet
creator: Allisyn Swift
creator: Samantha Francois
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 180
ending page: 195
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v4i3.340

Moving from Informing to Transforming
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description: HEARTS is a whole-school, prevention and intervention approach that addresses trauma and chronic stress at the student, staff, and school organizational levels. HEARTS is guided by six core evidence-grounded principles: 1) understanding stress and trauma; 2) cultural humility and equity; 3) safety and predictability; 4) compassion and dependability; 5) empowerment and collaboration; and 6) resilience and social-emotional wellness. One feature that distinguishes HEARTS from other school-based trauma-informed approaches is the centrality of cultural humility and equity, emphasizing that if an approach or intervention is not socially and racially just, then it is not trauma-informed. Since 2008, HEARTS has integrated culturally responsive and anti-oppressive approaches across a variety of implementation models. This paper describes practice-based lessons learned and insights across these various implementation models with respect to moving the needle on anti-racist, socially just, trauma-informed practices.
subject: Special Issue Articles
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creator: Martha Merchant
creator: Nyasha Evans-Bonner
creator: Stephanie Guinosso
creator: Hazel Benigno
creator: Joyce Dorado
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 108
ending page: 125
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v4i3.327

Equity-Centered and Trauma-Informed Teacher Education
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description: Teacher preparation programs must equip educators to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population, including building teachers’ understanding of trauma-informed practices and racism-based traumatic stress. Building on feedback from a pilot trauma-informed curriculum indicating that teacher candidates needed skills for better managing their own stress, trauma, and racial trauma, an equity-centered, trauma-informed teacher preparation model was developed. The model described in this conceptual article was delivered in conjunction with a teacher residency program designed to increase educator diversity in a large, urban emergent school district.
subject: Practitioner & Theoretical Perspectives
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creator: Kathryn Tillett
creator: Shantel Crosby
creator: M. Shelley Thomas
creator: Stefanie Wooten-Burnett
creator: Jasmine Haynes
creator: Steven Kniffley
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Kathryn Tillett, Shantel Crosby, M. Shelley Thomas, Stefanie Wooten-Burnett, Jasmine Haynes, Steven Kniffley https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-04-30
publication date: 2026-04-30
starting page: 127
ending page: 141
doi: 10.70085/

Advancing Culturally Responsive, Trauma-Informed School Mental Health Systems through a National Learning Collaborative
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description: Multi-site learning collaboratives have improved school mental health systems by offering pragmatic guidance for engaging in evidence-based practices. However, minimal research to date has examined the use of learning collaboratives to inform culturally responsive, trauma-informed school mental health systems. This pilot study illustrates the first national learning collaborative to advance comprehensive school mental health systems with specific attention to culturally responsive, trauma-informed care. Thirteen school districts in 14 states participated in the 2-year learning collaborative, representing urban, rural, and suburban communities. Descriptive statistics and paired-sample T-tests were used to examine school districts’ acceptability of the learning collaborative and progress in their school mental health systems. Findings support using learning collaboratives that provide professional development in trauma-informed and culturally responsive care to advance school mental health systems.
subject: Research Articles
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creator: Jerica Knox
creator: Tali Raviv
creator: Tiffany Beason
creator: Taneisha Carter
creator: Sarah Clark
creator: Saadia Elahi
creator: Ayla Novruz
creator: Sharon Hoover
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Jerica Knox, Tali Raviv, Tiffany Beason, Taneisha Carter, Sarah Clark, Saadia Elahi, Ayla Novruz, Sharon Hoover https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2026-04-30
publication date: 2026-04-30
starting page: 1
ending page: 14
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v5i1.128

Becoming CRITICAL CREATIVES
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description: This article examines trauma-informed healing and multidimensional well-being as key to radically (re)imagining and critically co-creating liberatory futures in higher education. Utilizing a bricolage, critical arts-based methodology, this multi-study qualitative research explored the meta-research-question: How are higher education stakeholders radically (re)imagining liberatory, abolitionist, decolonizing, and queering futures within U.S. higher education and beyond? Emergent findings cast visions for humanizing and radically healing higher education futures and identified that trauma-informed healing and multidimensional well-being for individuals/collectives/ecologies are both strategies for sustaining radical imagination and critical creativity (RICC) praxis to engender those futures, as well as practices that are reciprocally sustained through RICC praxis. Because of the embodied and communal nature of RICC praxis, trauma-informed healing (i.e., repairing harms, restoring generative relationships with individuals, community, and ecologies) that is both interpersonal and intrapersonal is integral to the praxis of dismantling what is while simultaneously radically imagining and critically creating what can be.
subject: Research Articles
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creator: Jes Takla
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-10-31
publication date: 2024-10-31
starting page: 120
ending page: 159
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v3i3.6852

We All We Got
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description: Within higher education, specifically religiously affiliated institutions (RAIs), the voices and experiences of Black queer womxn are undervalued, scrutinized, and at risk. Black queer womxn constantly face a particular blend of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia in these places—which may lead to religious trauma—and are punished for being our authentic selves. Our questions are “What are the experiences of Black queer womxn at a religiously affiliated institution?” and “How do Black queer womxn begin to heal from the racism, sexism, and homophobia present at RAIs?” We attempt to answer this question by using both the methodology of surrender and Sista Circle methodology, two radical practices that center Black womxn’s narratives. We believe that discussing our experiences in community will lead to greater healing and understanding of how we navigate our multiple oppressions at religiously affiliated institutions.
subject: Research Articles
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creator: Tolulope Taiwo
creator: Jazmin “JD” Dantzler
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-10-31
publication date: 2024-10-31
starting page: 96
ending page: 119
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v3i3.6899

The Role of Spirituality in Healing from Sexual and Relationship Violence in Higher Education
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description: In this article, we examine how radical healing grounded in spirituality can be transformative for college student survivors of sexual and relationship violence. We explore the history, challenges, and current dynamics that create tension and barriers for student survivors accessing religious or spiritual support in their healing journeys on campus. The paper includes two case studies describing the role of spirituality in healing for student survivors of color. We provide insights into practices and frameworks to empower practitioners, institutional leaders, and scholars to better support the needs of student survivors by incorporating spirituality into their work. Specifically, we discuss the importance of (a) encouraging students’ connection to nature and land, (b) offering trauma-informed yoga programs, (c) promoting community knowledge, and (d) creating supportive communal spaces.
subject: Research Articles
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creator: Nadeeka Karunaratne
creator: Karla Aguilar Marquez
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-10-31
publication date: 2024-10-31
starting page: 74
ending page: 95
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v3i3.6818

What Indigenous Futurity Can Teach Us about Healing Sexual Violence for Minoritized Students in Higher Education
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description: Critical scholars of sexual violence in higher education have highlighted the inequities and gaps that Minoritized students face in their search for support after experiencing violence on campus. As described by critical scholar Harris (2020), “healing often mitigates negative outcomes that stem from experiencing sexual assault” (pp. 249). In this article, I first explain the importance of understanding spatial geographies in the context of sexual violence for Minoritized survivors on university campuses. Second, I explore the concept of spatial futurity broadly, specifically Laura Harjo’s scholarship on Indigenous Futurity, as a guiding framework to transform experiences of violence into tools of action and healing. Finally, I discuss the healing experiences of Minoritized sexual violence survivors from a qualitative study that utilized Indigenous Research Methods and focused on Harjo’s concept of Emergence Geographies to explore research and practical implications for sexual violence response in higher education for Indigenous and other Minoritized students.
subject: Research Articles
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creator: Karla Aguilar Marquez
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-10-31
publication date: 2024-10-31
starting page: 52
ending page: 73
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v3i3.6837

Exploring Radical Healing among Asian/American College Women Survivors of Sexual and Relationship Violence
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description: Healing approaches for survivors of sexual and relationship violence (SRV) on college campuses often focus on individual symptom reduction and are often limited by traditional punitive responses to SRV. Such dominant approaches to supporting survivors overlook the cultural and communal needs of Asian/American (A/A) college women, who are often underrepresented in SRV research. Rooted in A/A women’s epistemologies, this study explores how A/A college women survivors engage in healing through culturally situated practices. Research collaborators engaged in Yum Chas and Rice Roundtables, two de/colonial and collectivist methods that drew upon a lineage of A/A ways of healing. Findings reveal how A/A women cultivate healing by re/embodying (a) food for the whole body, (b) solidarities with other A/A women, and (c) ancestral and intergenerational wisdom. This research underscores the need for higher education institutions to move beyond Western-centric, individualistic, and punitive models to support culturally resonant, systemic healing for A/A women survivors.
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creator: Grace Poon Ghaffari
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-10-31
publication date: 2024-10-31
starting page: 26
ending page: 51
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v3i3.6855

Shades of Brown
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description: Sexual assault is an epidemic that disproportionately affects Black women. Yet, despite this reality, on a systemic level, healing after experiencing sexual assault is an issue of racial equity. Many scholars take a race-evasive, individualized, and psychological approach to healing that silence and eclipse the lived experiences of Black women. Therefore, this study acts as a counterstory to talk back to the narrative of “sameness” that pushes a White women pattern of healing and promotes the erasure of students who identify as Black ciswomen in the literature. The purpose of this basic qualitative study is to explore how Black college cis women engage in healing after experiences with sexual assault. The inquiry and data were approached and analyzed from a critical theoretical framework, specifically, Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and Black Feminist Thought. Findings can inform scholars and education professionals to consider and center the healing needs of Black cis women.
subject: Research Articles
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creator: Tamara Thomas
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-10-31
publication date: 2024-10-31
starting page: 1
ending page: 25
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v3i3.6877

Radical Hope for Radical Healing
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description: I took this photo in January 2022. At the time, I was a third-year doctoral student. My doctoral program, which was designed to have two-week, in-person residencies twice a year, had been fully remote/online since 2020. It was my first time back in southern California for residency since the COVID-19 lockdowns. I was anxious about traveling again, worried about everyone’s wellbeing, and worn out from the intertwined challenges of navigating a full-time doctoral program and a full-time job in higher education amid the unfolding pandemic. During the first week back on-campus for January residency, I felt like a clenched fist. During the weekend break between weeks one and two, a few cohort-members and I visited the Getty Museum for a study break. As I took this photo from a viewpoint overlooking the landscape, I felt a cool breeze on my face and realized that for the first time in a long time I felt a sense of peaceful relief — an unclenching. Standing at the Getty, one could not tell that wildfires had burned through this area just a few years before. Our natural relations (e.g., animals, plants, land, water, air) inspire me: Even after a devastating fire, they (re)grow. For me, they embody radical hope for radical healing. Now, as I reflect on the day I took this photo, wildfires are burning again in southern California. I find myself again worried about the wellbeing of people and our natural relations there as the fires rage on. The Getty Museum has been lauded during this current/ongoing fire for its fire-resistant design, protecting its valuable collections. Meanwhile, I am thinking about what is lost in these fires that isn’t prioritized like the Getty’s museum artifacts—lives, homes, ecologies, and more. These days, higher education in the US in many ways feels to me like it’s “on fire,” metaphorically (and not in a good way). Zero-sum, dominant logics tell us we must choose — we can’t save, protect, and/or heal everything. Whereas, abundant logics argue our f…
subject: Art as Knowledge
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creator: Jes Takla
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-10-31
publication date: 2024-10-31
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v3.i3.308

Introduction to the Special Issue
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subject: Letter from the Editor
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creator: Grace Poon Ghaffari
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2024-10-31
publication date: 2024-10-31
starting page: i
ending page: vii
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v3i3.302

Trauma Reverberations
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description: Current research shows a clear relationship between trauma and health, yet the intersectionality of trauma, food insecurity, eating disorders, chronic diseases, and food relationships is minimally examined in counseling and family therapy scholarship. Though the academic environment is optimal for healing, interconnected trauma and health encounters, including those of marginalized students, are not well understood. A phenomenological study, therefore, examines how intergenerational trauma intersects with student-participants’ lived experiences of food insecurity, eating disorders, chronic diseases, and food relationships. Results indicate that intergenerational health, environment, food accessibility, imprinting, and food relationships influence how students utilize resources and protective factors in lived experiences. Interlineal factors also impact how students experience campus culture related to FI, EDs, CDs, and FRs, and the systemic racism endured by marginalized students when seeking help. Future implications for inclusive campus resources are discussed.
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creator: Chaya Abrams
creator: Amanda Bouza
creator: Luke Freccero
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2025-10-28
publication date: 2025-10-28
starting page: 118
ending page: 154
doi: 10.70085/jtse.v4i2.299

Grappling with Life After Loss as Educator Leaders
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description: When a student dies, educators must cope with their own grief while supporting the grief of their surviving students. Educators have navigated student death for centuries, but today’s educators face new circumstances—gun-related violence, the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasingly-common natural disasters—and persistent reminders of student death via 24-hour news cycles and social media feeds. Such experiences occur in the context of a Western propensity to dismiss grief as a distraction from production. Having few or no cultural habits to depend on, school leaders may lack the ability to effectively care for educators in the wake of a student’s death. Outlined herein is the School Crisis Recovery and Renewal project. Described in detail is the Life After Loss Tables: Educators Edition program, a set of practices that aim to rehumanize the educator grief healing process by hosting educators in a co-created supportive and regenerative space. Practical recommendations are outlined.
subject: Special Issue Articles
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creator: Leora Wolf-Prusan
creator: Oriana Ides
creator: Meagan O'Malley
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-10-31
publication date: 2023-10-31
starting page: 136
ending page: 154

The Racial Melancholia of Un-grieved Endings
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description: Educational researchers are quick to intellectualize solutions to teacher attrition without feeling what is in front of us and within us: overwhelming, unmetabolized grief. Blending online ethnography with somatic and critical understandings of grief and trauma, this study seeks to understand teacher attrition as a felt sense of loss. Focusing on the stories of four teachers of color, I use the concept of racial melancholia to describe a liminal stage of grief and a distinct form of racialized trauma, as participants wrestle with their internal landscapes, administrative responses to their departure, and decisions to bid farewell, or not, to their students. I conclude with ways for educators, researchers, and leaders to affirm the grief of teachers of color and speculate how doing so can disrupt teacher attrition and compounded racialized grief in schools.
subject: Special Issue Articles
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creator: Stephanie Cariaga
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
date: 2023-10-31
publication date: 2023-10-31
starting page: 118
ending page: 135