Trauma Informed Attachment Aware schools

In collaboration with our partners within West Midlands Virtual Schools and ARC, we are launching Worcestershire’s contribution to a West Midlands-wide programme to help settings develop their TIAA practice and to gain recognition for their TIAA work.

This has two strands:

1. The ARC Pathway – a regional certification model (‘bronze’, ‘silver’, ‘gold’ and ‘platinum’/’learning hub’) ensuring consistency and recognition.
2. The ARC Matrix – a learning development framework to initiate or further develop your TIAA practice.

The Pathway and supporting Matrix are closely linked to the Ofsted Education Inspection Framework (EIF) to help schools and settings to demonstrate how their practice fulfils key Ofsted criteria and can be integrated into your Self Evaluation Forms (SEF).

To support you with this project, Worcester Virtual school is offering fully funded ARC membership for one year.

This will provide your setting with free access to the ARC pathway and matrix. 

Becoming a member of ARC will also open up professional and educational pathways within a membership platform with readily available resources, regional workshops, panel discussions and virtual events that allow our members to network and support each other.  As well as regional events, members will benefit from priority booking and discounted fees for ARC’s annual conference, which over previous years has successfully hosted 2000+ delegates and showcased a list of renowned keynote speakers such as Paul Dix, Prof. Barry Carpenter, Prof. Janet Rose and Kim Goulding.

The ARC Pathway

Since 2019 Worcestershire Virtual school has been working in Collaboration with Trauma Informed Schools UK, funding all schools to have a Trauma Informed Practitioner, following successful completion of the: 

Diploma In Trauma and Mental Health Informed Schools and Communities online training

This practical, skills-based training course, underpinned by over 1000 evidence-based psychological, medical, and neuroscientific research studies, is designed to inform and empower delegates to respond effectively to vulnerable and challenging children and those who have suffered a trauma or have a mental health issue.  Without such interventions, painful life experiences are likely to persist through challenging behaviour, blocks to learning and lifelong physical and mental health problems.

Worcestershire Virtual School are extremely proud that in January 2023 over 49% of Worcestershire schools have a Trauma Informed Practitioner and are therefore making systemic changes through policy and procedure and are better equipped to understand and support the most vulnerable learners.

The training for one delegate consists of a Level 5 diploma over 11 days of training and 1 assessment day (over 2 terms).

Benefits of attending the course

• Gain a prestigious award in working as a mental health and wellbeing practitioner for schools and communities
• Learn to relate to children and young people in ways that alleviate their suffering, support their learning and make them feel cared for and appreciated
• Know how to respond to children who are in distress or stressed states in ways that help them to emotionally regulate, feel psychologically safe and deeply valued for who they are
• Know how to listen and empathise when children want to talk about painful issues and help them reflect and resolve
• Develop an in-depth understanding of what it’s like for a child or teenager to suffer from specific mental health problems (e.g., depression or anxiety and feel confident in offering them accurate empathy, understanding and key psycho-education.
• Develop an in-depth understanding of the long-term impact of specific adverse childhood experiences and how to enable the child or teenager to work through feelings of anger and traumatic loss.
• Learn how to increase the protective factors and ‘safety cues’ in the school culture, to benefit all, adults as well as children.
• Enable other staff to think psychologically about pupils in terms of what has happened to them rather than simply addressing behaviour.
• Support staff in ways that prevent them suffering from high levels of stress, developing secondary trauma and leaving the profession as a result.
• Know limits of competence and when to refer on to other agencies.

We are currently running two cohorts of training per academic year.  

To find out about more about an upcoming cohort or those schools that have already engaged with this training please email Worcester Virtual School: virtualschool@worcestershire.gov.uk