Creating Trauma-Informed Systems

Our six-year-old son is autistic and he was struggling with school refusal and dysregulation after a traumatic school year, where he was removed from class almost daily. Yesenia helped him learn to express his needs in a safer way when feeling overwhelmed. She also coached us, as parents, on how to support him at home. And she helped his classroom teacher understand how to support him at school so that he could feel safe enough to learn.

During the first two months of the year, Yesenia spent almost every day with our son, supporting him and his teacher. But within a few months, he was able to attend school successfully and happily with very few supports. He finished the school year feeling so proud of his accomplishments — he learned to read, made good friends, and became an important member of his classroom community. We couldn’t have imagined things could improve so much for him, so quickly! Yesenia’s work with him made all the difference.

Ms. Stewart is a true expert in child development. She works to differentiate meeting the needs of all the students and teachers on her caseload. She builds trust, models, and uses a gradual release method to help teachers work with students exhibiting challenging behaviours. Ms. Stewart empowers and supports families to function as advocates for themselves and their children in a way that creates lasting contributions to the child’s positive self-managed behaviour. She has truly changed the way some of the teachers think and interact with our students. Building the capacity of our teachers’ understanding when working with students exhibiting challenging behaviours has had a tremendous impact on the overall culture of our school.

I teach in a varied age group of 3 – 6 year olds in a public school. Prior to this year I felt confident working with a variety of students. However, a new student arrived who struggled greatly at their previous school. The behaviors were dysregulation, bolting, using profanities and struggling to settle and attend group time or lessons. No matter what I tried it was not successful. I felt defeated and questioned my ability to teach all children who entered my classroom. Yesenia spent days in the classroom observing and noticing patterns. In time she began working with the child. Asking questions, growing to understand their thinking and always remaining calm and consistent with high expectations. She worked with me to create a safe spot for this child. Yesenia also worked with the parents and specialist teachers to have everyone on the same page. She would often talk about “being transparent”. It took small steps that all grew into nurturing the whole child. By the end of the year the child was a fluent reader, regulated with their strategies . The end of the year the child frequently told me how much they loved school and how they felt school was a safe place and teachers really respected the kids. Yesenia changed the trajectory for this child and educated me on how to work with a student who I felt I did not know. Yesenia has a true gift working with children and adults