Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Summer 2025
Abstract
More students are arriving in the early childhood classroom with trauma. This trauma can lead to PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), ADHD and reactive attachment disorder. This leads to early childhood teachers feeling burned out and experiencing secondary trauma. Despite this, early childhood educators are not getting additional training that would help support children who have exposure to trauma. In addition, the training they have received doesn't include classroom strategies or social-emotional materials that would address the uptick in trauma-impacted children. The purpose of this study was to look at the perspectives of early childhood educators when it comes to their desire for additional trauma-informed training and their access to social emotional materials that are trauma sensitive. This study was carried out using a comprehensive literature review, a survey given to early childhood educators and a reflective journal that looked deeper at the implications of the current literature surrounding this topic. The results of the inquiry-based research indicate that while early childhood educators feel confident in their ability to support students with trauma, they would feel more confident if they were given additional training in trauma-informed care. Moreover, early childhood educators indicate that they would like access to targeted social -emotional materials that can support trauma-impacted children. Lastly, findings show that some early childhood educators are not utilizing social-emotional materials that extend beyond the calm-down corner and calming down tools. These findings highlight the importance of giving early childhood educators a variety of social-emotional materials that can help trauma-impacted children.