Trauma Informed Teaching Through Play Art Narrative (PAN)

Trauma affects the lives of many children who we teach in school. It effects the students, teachers who teach them, the administration, and the school community as it is part of the school environment and culture. Teachers and administrators have great potential to set up an environment and adopt an attitude that can help heal the trauma in the lives of their students. Schools need to become trauma-informed to be able to provide for the growing number of refugee children who have experienced terrorism, crime, war, and abuse, to better help some Indigenous children who due to systemic racism and discriminatory policies have been traumatised and live daily with trauma, and the growing number of all children who have experienced various kinds of trauma during their life span. Trauma informed schools means that all students can feel safe enough to learn, succeed academically and thrive after having undergone a traumatic event. Trauma Informed Teaching demonstrates how Play Art Narrative (PAN) can be instrumental in creating trauma informed schools. The authors provide play, art, and narrative techniques and activities that educators can use to safely work therapeutically with traumatised children and youth.