Description
Commonly used school discipline practices can not only backfire with traumatized students but may drive them out of school and into the justice system. These discipline methods may push students dealing with trauma from “learning brain” to “survival brain” – causing more negative and counter-productive behavior. Connection, relationship and a safe environment are keys to keeping trauma from derailing students.
In this 90-minute webinar, author and trauma expert Aaron Wiemeier, LPC will share techniques and strategies to integrate mental health into discipline. He will illustrate the difference between punishment (inflicting suffering in hopes of decreasing problem behavior) and discipline (teaching something in hopes of increasing desirable behavior). Attendees will gain an understanding of what trauma is, how it causes injury and that humans are built to heal. Aaron will discuss how healing begins in relationships and how educators can foster healthy relationships with traumatized students while helping them understand that they can choose to not let it control their behavior.
Learning Objectives:
- Gain an understanding of the function of behavior (attention- or connection-seeking)
- Explore positive and negative cognitions and how to reframe them
- Master strategies to help students recognize previous patterns and create new ones
- Gain interventions for stopping self-sabotage by understanding the aversive state
- Learn how and why to use intermittent unexpected reinforcement
ABOUT THE PRESENTER:
Aaron J. Wiemeier is a licensed professional counselor with 20 years of experience in the mental health field and is a nationally recognized author, trainer and educator. He is an expert in the neurophysiology of trauma, attachment & adoption and has worked successfully with the most difficult of clients and with the most chaotic and conflictual systems. His pioneering work and program development has led to highly successful outcomes that increase permanency in least restrictive settings and ultimately reduce fiscal spending particularly in the mental health, educational and legal systems. In 2011, Aaron published a workbook titled, My Feelings Workbook, which teaches affect regulation, awareness and skill development on a nonverbal body level to children. The book was subsequently endorsed by well-established professionals in the trauma, attachment and Autism community. Aaron is also the Dean of Students at Littleton Preparatory Charter School in Littleton, CO, where he is pioneering the development of curriculum and programming that integrates education with the ever increasing mental health needs that plague public schools in the United States. Most recently, he co-authored School-Based Interventions for the Traumatized Student, a culmination of a life’s work centered around creative ways to reach, work with and inspire hope in children who have experienced trauma.
