Grant will help traumatized students

Teachers will get training to have tools in dealing with classroom issues

Understanding the needs of traumatized children is a skill more often associated with psychologists than it is with teachers, but in Washington County schools, teachers and other staff members encounter those needs daily.

he professional background and training of educators doesn’t necessarily prepare them for the intricacies of navigating their students’ mental health states.

The six districts, along with the county’s Head Start providers and the Ohio Valley Educational Service Center, will get some help in the coming year. The Washington County Behavioral Health Board has approved a grant of $120,000 to fund training for teachers and other school staff to be delivered by Life and Purpose Behavioral Health, a mental health treatment agency in Marietta.

Traumatized children can be disruptive at school, they can become the victims of bullying, their difficult lives can manifest expression in any number of ways, but trauma almost inevitably creates obstacles to success in education.

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