GNS: Learning More to Help Our Students

Educational Assistants from across the Division and the Inclusive Learning Team - BEST mental Health Team, Family School Liaison Counselors, Therapy Aids, Speech Language Pathologist, Occupational Therapist, and Psychologist -  came together in Hinton on March 9th to learn about the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) from presenter Bonnie Randall, a national trainer for the Centre for Trauma-Informed Practices.

Adverse childhood experiences can have a tremendous impact on future violence victimization and perpetration, and lifelong health and opportunity. They can shape the architecture of the human brain, often forming the foundation for behavioural struggles, learning difficulties, and even health challenges over the course of a lifetime. Similarly, resiliency changes brain architecture and can often overcome even the gravest of damage incurred by adversity, trauma.

Participants came together for this day-long experiential workshop on how neurobiology is impacted by adversity—and why learning the ACEs scores - as your score increases, the risk of health problems and social and emotional problems increases - helps everyone more robustly understand the limitations that may be faced by students...and where they can best re-build internal capacity.