Understanding and Addressing the Needs of Students in Special Education Through a Trauma-Informed Resilience Curriculum

ABSTRACT

This school program evaluation aims to highlight the mental health needs of students in special education with behavioral and emotional challenges and describe the implementation of a resilience curriculum with this population. We evaluated district mental health data from a convenience sample of 814 students in grades 5–12 special education to identify risk for mental health symptoms, violence exposure, and substance use. School social workers provided feedback on the implementation of the resilience curriculum to inform program evaluation. Students reported significant risk for traumatic stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, and high rates of violence exposure and substance use. School social workers described adaptations to the resilience curriculum and gave recommendations for future implementation. Students receiving special education services for behavioral and emotional challenges had high mental health need, including high rates of violence exposure, and may benefit from a trauma-informed school-based resilience curriculum adapted for their needs.

KEYWORDS:

• Special education
• psychological trauma
• resilience curriculum
• school mental health services

Acknowledgments

The content and views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Institutes of Health, or the United States Government.

Dr. Kristin Gray was supported by the Nathanson Family Resilience Center at UCLA as a postdoctoral scholar from 2015-2017 during this study and manuscript preparation.

Drs. Ijadi-Maghsoodi, Kataoka, and Aralis consult to a school district.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study were accessed with a Data Use Agreement from the school district that restricts data sharing outside of this project. Thus, the data cannot be made publicly available. Any access to the data would be subject to district approval and a Data Use Agreement with the district.

Additional information

Funding

Dr. Ijadi-Maghsoodi received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number K12DA000357, the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families, and the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine COVID-19 Research Award during the preparation of this manuscript. Drs. Aralis, Kataoka, and Ijadi-Maghsoodi are funded by the National Institute of Mental Health [1U01MH131827-01].