[From Our Partners] Addressing Trauma Among School-Aged Children: Early Findings from the Implementation of the Margaret’s Place Program
For children and youth who experience trauma and violence at home or in their communities, those experiences often manifest in school. Schools can be critically important settings for providing support, addressing trauma, and fostering social-emotional skills and resilience. Mental health practitioners in schools often work with individual children to address the impact of trauma and violence on their development, behaviors, and academic performance.
However, in communities with large numbers of students affected by trauma and violence, the implementation of school-wide prevention and intervention programs has the potential to benefit a greater number of students and improve school climate and may have downstream effects on student engagement, academic achievement, and discipline. In recent years, the number of school-based programs addressing the impact of violence and trauma in children and youth has grown.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, through its Criminal Justice Investment Initiative and with oversight from the CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance, funded the Center for Court Innovation to evaluate such a program in Washington Heights, Manhattan. This report presents the methods, findings, and recommendations from the interim evaluation of the Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation’s Margaret’s Place program.