SURVIVAL BASICS

Shelter. Sustenance. Safety.

These are basic human needs that an increasing number of students are going without. Before we can engage the more finite development of Guiding Principles and Trauma-Informed Design, we must address how our educational facilities can meet basic needs. These physical needs are based on the largest subset of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - Physiological (food and clothing).

  • Schools may have students who are either experiencing homelessness or are transient — moving back and forth between multiple extended family or friends' households or foster services. Every day children arrive at school without appropriate clothes or having had access to hygiene facilities. Providing spaces and resources for these students can help them feel capable, empowered, and welcome. Studies show access to these resources increase student attendance and engagement.

    Address hygiene

    • Shower facilities

    Care for clothing/possessions

    • Laundry facilities for student use

    • Lockers or closets to store belongings

    Provide a safe space for sleep

    Provide the basics

    • Warm, safe, and dry

      • Create comfortable spaces

    • A clothes closet to aid students lacking essential clothing or ill equipped for inclement weather

    Create layers of shelter

    • Create opportunities to retreat

      • A den, nook, or cave for protection

      • Floor cushions may provide a comfortable oasis

      • Sensory materials, fidget toys, resistance bands

    • Create opportunities to observe

    • See what's going on from the safety of a retreat area

    • Create opportunities to participate

      • In individual or trusted small group activities before engaging with larger groups

  • More and more schools are recognizing that young students benefit from frequent snacks, rather than relying on a short lunch period to satiate them. In addition, many students come to school hungry and go home to an empty pantry. Providing opportunities for meals throughout the day can help students focus on learning instead of being distracted by their rumbling stomachs.

    Remedy hunger and thirst:

    • A kitchenette for warm meals

    • A community pantry for take-home provisions

    • Opportunities for food and drink in learning areas

    • Availability before, during, and after school

    Drinking fountains and water stations, indoors and out

  • Children who have experienced trauma often have a dysregulated fight or flight system, meaning their response to a perceived threat may be out of proportion with the facts of the situation, i.e., hearing a door slam and scrambling for cover, or shutting down completely when caught off-guard by a question in class. Traumatized children can struggle to engage with their peers and oftentimes have trust issues. Some children have different levels of trust for people in their lives, while others may feel that trusting anyone is too dangerous and remain on-guard at all times. Hypervigilance, or monitoring one's surroundings to ensure personal safety, is physically and emotionally exhausting and quickly depletes internal resources intended for learning.

    Understand levels of trust

    • Work to ensure individual needs are met

    Accommodate hypervigilance:

    • Vantage points and clear sightlines with transparent materials

    • Spaces that feel protected

    • Multiple routes to destinations

    • Calm and quiet spaces away from the primary activity/action

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Guiding Principles are big-picture ideas or goals that frame projects and help prioritize decision-making. Different projects invariably have different guiding principles. Safe and secure; personalized; collaborative; learning focused; flexible and adaptable; community connected; and sustainability are guiding principles we often encounter in our projects.

In many ways the guiding principles of design mirror the guiding principles of TIC. When a thread of TIC is woven into the overarching concepts that shape a project, we are able to create spaces that more accurately address the needs of the Whole Child.

  • A safe and secure environment includes physical attributes such as visible, single points of entry and home bases for students within their learning communities. Less tangible attributes, such as fostering a sense of belonging and providing social-emotional comfort, can also be addressed through designing a space that feels protected.

    Welcoming

    Highly visible

    Home base

  • Personalized learning environments offer the opportunity for all students to be known well and encouraged socially, emotionally, as well as academically. Sustained relationships among students and adults are promoted.

    Trustworthy, transparent

    Empowering to student and community voices

    Cultural, gender support

    Celebrate children's work

  • These spaces facilitate student-to-student, adult-to-student, and adult-to-adult interactions. Families and community feel welcomed, engaged, and involved in learning.

    Provide peer support

    Encourage interpersonal communications

    Create opportunities for sharing of feeling, action, or support between groups

  • The effects of trauma are widespread, but none are as dramatic as the changes that happen within the brain. Research has demonstrated that under duress the body’s neural regulatory network stalls or even shuts down. In lay terms, this means that under stress the brain is not able to have a regulated response to new information and learners are not ready to learn.

    When under stress and without intervention, learners may “act out” or withdraw from learning activities.

    Learning-focused spaces engage the individual learner and support the capabilities of each child. In addition to deep engagement, powerful learning environments provide layers of space for children to discover how to regulate their emotional responses and how to become ready to learn.

    What does the brain research say?

    • Body regulatory network shuts down higher brain functions if stressed

    • Sequence of engagement

    • Regulatory system balanced (not stressed)

    • Connect emotionally (listened to, respected)

    • Reasoning engaged (higher brain functions – language, history, morals)

  • Flexible and adaptable spaces are a mainstay of 21st-century education. They provide students the option to create spaces that are ideal for their individualized learning needs. They include spaces that are unique, easily changed, and not overly prescriptive.

    Options/Choices

    • Choices for seating

    • Options for movement

    • Exercise while learning

    • Movement leads to centering, mindfulness

    • Whole Child awareness

    Agency

    Varied Spaces

  • Learning communities are inherently rooted in the land and culture of place. Just as each community is different, the impact of trauma varies from place to place. One community may be impacted by racism, another by poverty, and still another by the Covid pandemic. A natural disaster or mass tragedy will invariably impact the children of a community in distinct ways. The design response to trauma must be tailored to meet each community’s specific challenges

    Schools can become a community’s hub for social services and cultural programs celebrating arts, language, and cuisine. Reinforcing the contextual vitality of community helps students dealing with trauma develop a sense of safety, mutuality, and empowerment.

    Culture

    Identity

    History

    Social justice

    Environmental justice

    Sustainability

  • Sustainable design supports healthy students as well as a healthy planet. Studies have shown: contact with nature enhances healing and recovery, healthy childhood maturation correlates with contact with natural features and settings, and our brains respond functionally to natural patterns and cues.11 Sustainable design, enriching a deep connection to place, enhances emotional well-being, problem solving, critical thinking, and constructive abilities.

    Build with sustainable, non-red-list materials

    Provide access to fresh water, daylighting, biophilia

    Provide additional educational opportunities

    • Experiential graphics

    • Outdoor access and learning space

    Build place-based relationships

    Enhance human-nature relationships

    Explore environmental justice opportunities

Overarching Design Characteristics provide patterns that support Trauma-Informed Design. This evolving list has been compiled from research, observations, and input from educators experienced in dealing with trauma.

The list is intended to be used to spur creative thinking about designing for kids dealing with trauma; to remind us of critical issues impacting traumatic stress; and to help us critique our designs in the hope of developing more comprehensive solutions.

OVERARCHING DESIGN CHARACTERISTICS

  • Personalization ranges from the large-scale arrangement of a learning community to the small-scale individualization of a learning setting. It may include way-finding and experiential graphics, layers of space entering into the school, and an environment where learners are able to individualize art displays, learning spaces, or their home base.

    Design human-scaled space

    • Small groups of varied learning spaces

    Eliminate institutional feel

    • Entry way-finding

    • Streetscapes

    • Gracious circulation space - navigate without touching others

    Allow opportunity for personalized space

    • Customization by learners

      • Art

      • Flexible furniture

  • Transparency is about being able to see your place within a larger space. It helps to create a feeling of safety by minimizing dark dead ends, and offers vantage, connection, and passive supervision. It can delineate learning pods or conference rooms within the greater learning community, helping learners feel connected. It also provides a glimpse into learning spaces so activities are visible to teachers or other learners, ensuring they always have access to caring adults.

    Design two-way visibility between spaces

    Create opportunities to see who’s coming and going

    Balance transparency with areas of refuge

    • Need to see but also need to feel secure

    Avoid the feeling of being in a fishbowl

  • Flexible learning environments are one of the hallmarks of 21st-century education design. Whether in individual learning spaces, flex areas, or throughout the school, flexible spaces allow for a range of teaching methods and pedagogies that are adaptable to individual students. Flexibility to choose how to use the space and the flexibility to move between these connected spaces with no stigma attached to making these personal choices can go a long way in eliminating an ‘institutional feel’ and helping traumatized children feel in control, empowered, and able to self-regulate their emotions.

    Design for multiple ways of using space

    Allow equitable use by all

    Adjust space for specific needs of kids

    Create choice

    • Seating/table types, locations, noise levels, light levels, group or solo

    Utilize Technology

    • Evolving technology requires access and reconfiguration

    • Flexibility for students who need quiet, customized spaces to work

  • While the horror of active shooters grabs headlines, more pernicious challenges impact the safety of our students on a daily basis. Twenty-five percent of our children are bullied in school and 20% are abused. School safety is an all-encompassing concern.

    School design can mitigate security issues and create positive environments that empower kids and give them agency.

    Make spaces trustworthy and transparent

    Adopt appropriate CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) design principles

    Empower student voices

    Create cultural, gender support

    Use biophilic design

  • While daylighting is of primary importance for ideal learning environments, artificial light — which many times must supplement daylight — should be thoughtfully designed to minimize harsh shadows, flickering bulbs, and cold color temperature.

    Design excellent daylight in learning areas

    • Create areas of lower/ adjustable light levels

    Augment natural light with artificial light

    • High quality, warm values, task lighting

    Avoid sensory triggers

    • Harsh, flickering, buzzing lights

    • Visual complexity – distracting patterns on walls and floors

  • At best, loud noise may distract students from their studies. At worst, it can trigger traumatic responses in learners who have experienced significant stress or PTSD. Absorbing and attenuating sound helps to create calming spaces where students can concentrate.

    Create balanced acoustics

    • Minimize unnecessary and overwhelming ambient noise

    • Both sudden and steady noise can be stressful

    Attenuate sound

    • Tiled and/or portable carpets are a great option because they can be replaced and cleaned as needed to eliminate pathogens and dust

    Provide variable sound options

    • Music, calming sounds – water, birds

  • Display can consist of student work, experiential graphics, or commissioned art, and may include way-finding graphics. Adding a personalized touch to spaces helps create a sense of belonging and pride.

    Display for visual interest and warmth

    • Artwork: landscapes, organic color palettes

    • Biophilic elements

    • Hand-made features in high-traffic areas such as entryways to humanize a building

    Ensure that art does not have a symbolic significance that may be interpreted negatively

    Place positive messages in learning, gathering, and circulation areas

    • Avoid punitive sounding messages

    • Consider “can do” vs “can’t do”

    Reduce clutter in visuals

    • Avoid too much visual stimulus

    Avoid overhead, hanging, dangling display – can spark hypervigilance

  • Furniture needs vary by spatial use. In general, providing a variety of seating options with space to move around them leads to more active learners. It allows students to organize the space to suit their learning styles.

    Keep spaces uncluttered

    Don’t overcrowd with furniture or visual stimulation

    Ensure adequate space for navigation

    Provide flexibility and choice

    • Separate and varying chair and table options

    • Wheels on tables, chairs - quiet and movable

    • Optional locations, noise levels, lighting levels

    • Socialization options, individual or group layouts

    • Seating options may face into walls to give greater privacy

    • Soft finishes, comfort

    Provide a peace corner

    • Focus, quiet, calm

    Materiality

    • Durable, easy to clean

  • Historically, toilet rooms have been marginally supervised areas in schools where many challenging behaviors occur. Bullying, drug use, sex, and suicide top the list. Toilet rooms need to be designed to provide privacy while promoting safety for all students. Different cultures and communities have strongly held opinions about toilet room design and thoughtful communication and questions need to be dealt with to address the needs of all. Critical questions include:

    Lockable individual rooms with toilets and sinks vs stalls and common sink areas

    Lockable toilet rooms with common sink areas

    All gender vs binary

    • Alternative approaches within a facility - traditional and progressive

    Safety and support for LGBTQ+ students

    Safety and support for traumatized kids

    Passive supervision provisions

    • Visually and/or acoustically open to corridors vs behind doors

    • Cameras

    Cleanliness - urinals vs all-toilets (boys pee on the seats!)

    Address needs of homeless children

    • Shower, lockers, laundry

  • Interaction with materials and finishes primarily involves touch and sight. Finishes should be calming, biophilic, and not contain harmful chemicals. It is important to work with individual stakeholders and communities to determine what is culturally appropriate. In selecting materials and finishes, consider that you are affecting all five senses.

    Use soft, durable, easy to clean finishes

    Design with biophilia in mind

    • Avoid institutional, slick feel

    Consider wall colors carefully

    • Avoid bright white, gray, beige – stark or institutional

    • Avoid sensory triggers – neon intensity, deep saturated colors

      • Red, yellow, orange

    Consider light shades of blues, greens, purples

    • Foster spaciousness

    • Colors found in nature

    • Pops of bright colors are okay

    Be culturally respectful – finishes, colors, patterns

    Use textured, naturally weathering materials

    Use low VOC finishes to prevent off-gassing of design materials

    • Consider a fragrance-free environment

  • Different students have varying spatial needs to find refuge, to recharge, or to rebalance from traumatic stress. While a quiet “peace corner” in a classroom may suffice for an elementary age student, adolescents often need to get away from a room filled with other learners to find a space to re-center their emotions. Barring approved calming space alternatives, traumatized learners may seek out default spaces such as a restroom stall, seldom used stairwell, or similar unsupervised retreats.

    Consider developing a series of approved, passively or actively supervised spaces for kids experiencing stress to find refuge

    • A portion of an office of a trusted adult – counselor, SPED supervisor, nurse, administrator, etc.

    • A small conference room adjacent to a trusted adult’s workspace

    • A quiet corner of a flex area, breakout learning area, or shared work space co-located with a group of learning spaces

    • A quiet outdoor space (climate dependent) within sight lines of outdoor learning spaces or administrators. A calming garden, grove, or outlook tucked away from bustling activity zones

    • Consider areas of refuge within or adjacent to large gathering areas (Library/Media Center, Commons/Cafeteria, Gym, Theater, etc.)

    • Provide quiet edges, nooks, balconies, or adjacent rooms for retreat or passive observation rather than direct engagement

    Consider flexible seating, soft seating, study niches, or counters that face a wall to develop areas of refuge without ‘calling attention’ to the need for retreat

    • Beanbags and soft finishes

    Consider separate, supervised options at whole-school assemblies or large gatherings for students experiencing trauma

    • Provide shared video or sound of the events occurring in the large gathering space

    Consider communication and supervision protocols for identifying and supporting student needs within the busy schedules of school personnel

    Consider multiple spaces and options when trusted adults are unavailable or “things get crazy”

  • Biophilia, or using elements that are natural in form or material, helps to de-institutionalize learning environments. Connection to nature helps to calm and center students and staff, and can also create a sense of place for the school.

    Create a connection to nature

    • Outdoor connections can enhance emotional, problem-solving, critical thinking, and constructive abilities

    Use biophilia in Design

    • Use nature-inspired colors, textures

    • Draw inspiration from the context of place

    • Use vernacular design when appropriate

    Design outdoor learning spaces that provide additional space to learn

    • Create sensory patterns in natural environment

    • Provide learning and teaching opportunities

  • Technology is capable of facilitating remote learning. This can allow students to learn from home when necessary, and it can also help to create individualized, trauma-informed learning experiences within schools. Interactive technology allows students to participate in larger events while allowing them to be physically present in a smaller, more personalized learning space.

    Provide technology for children needing a quiet, customized space to work

    • Give children a sense of agency over learning

    Integrate technology into areas of refuge in larger spaces to allow students to sit away from the action while still participating

  • Spaces that invoke wonder, curiosity, inspiration, and fun, and those designed for exploration, creativity, and discovery via hands-on experiences perform double duty - not only do they enhance the learning experience for all children, but they also provide a grounding and calming experience for those experiencing symptoms of trauma. Unstructured play allows students to move at their own pace in a nonjudgmental setting, empowering them to use their agency and play to their strengths.

    Use play as a means to learn

    • Furniture that provides opportunity for movement in classrooms

    • Allows for Whole Child awareness

    Provide spaces that transition between structured indoor vs. unstructured outdoor, and formal teaching vs. informal play help with self-regulation of emotions and grounding

    Design informal seating and gathering spaces to facilitate social interactions and initiate playfulness

    • Sensory tables, building blocks, board games, reading nooks

  • Project-based learning (PBL) provides opportunity to develop solutions for specific projects. PBL is active, hands-on learning and it empowers students to personalize their learning experience. This can allow kids struggling with trauma to retreat from the larger group and still participate (either individually or with a small, trusted group) while working on a project.

    Include spaces for hands-on learning

    Provide opportunities for differentiated learning

    • da Vinci Studios provide art and music integration

    • Maker Labs

    • Greenhouses, gardens, and vegetable patches grown by students offer sensory grounding and connections to natural cycles - these may be used as a connection to community initiatives

    • Outdoor learning spaces

      • Provide learning and teaching opportunities for sustainable design

      • Greenhouses, gardens, and vegetable patches grown by students offer sensory grounding and connections to natural cycles - these may be used as a connection to community initiatives.

SPACES WITHIN A SCHOOL

This section explores spaces and groups of spaces within an educational environment where aspects of the overarching design characteristics might be applied

  • LIBRARY / MEDIA CENTER

    Enhance personalization

    • Nooks, edges, study carrels

    • Refuge at perimeter

    • Flexible, movable furniture

    Balance social spaces and private spaces

    • Small conference rooms with relites

    Learning opportunities

    • Project-based learning

    • Opportunity to replace corridors and hallways with studios, informal gathering spaces, and makerspaces adjacent to more formal learning spaces

    COMMONS / CAFETERIA

    Seating options

    • Small tables, high-tops, booths, counters for a variety of group sizes

    • Perimeter counter to look away from the busy space

    • Raised platform/space for refuge and/or prospect over a space

    • Connection to outdoors

    THEATER / AUDITORIUM

    Viewing options

    • Balcony or raised space for stressed students

    • Options for alternative viewing setting

    PHYSICAL EDUCATION SPACES

    Activity Options

    • Activity room that supports focused mindfulness exercises: yoga, meditation, tai chi, etc.

    • Movement courses on walls and floors for balance and self-awareness

    • Use of circulation spaces as opportunities to encourage mindfulness, the joy of physical movement, and grounding

    • Connection to outdoors

    Design elements

    • Perimeter benches

    • Thoughtful placement of mirrors - not all students want to “be on display”

  • While the exact size varies and is determined by available resources, educational pedagogy, and cultural preferences, an average Learning Community size of 150 works for most.13

    Enhance personalization

    Human scale

    Home base - known well

    Access to multiple caring adults

    Balance social spaces and private spaces

    See the door(s), window(s)

    See who is coming and going

    More than only seeing a whiteboard

    Develop layers within each community

    Small, medium, large

    Open, translucent, closed

    Consider primal-inspired learning spaces

    Cave-like, privacy niche

    Watering hole or fire pit

    • Gathering space

    Upholstered tube

    Address the needs of the learner

    Isolation vs inclusion

    Home base - personalized, retreat, focus, relationships

    Learners known well by teacher(s)

    Provide variable size spaces to support personalized learning opportunities

    • Small group spaces (2-6 learners)

      • One-on-one mentoring, instruction

      • Collaboration on group projects

    • Medium group spaces (6-15 learners)

      • Group instruction

      • Project-based learning

    • Large group space (15+ learners)

      • Presentation, debate

    Adaptability to support student agency

    Safe edges, nooks, areas of refuge

    Visible connections to outdoors/nature, physical activity areas, electives - music, art, career pathways, makers lab

  • Enhance connections to nature

    Calm, center, de-stress, ground

    Breathe – oxygenate the brain – enhance learning and focus

    Encourage problem-solving skills, critical thinking, constructive abilities

    Enhance emotional clarity

    Promote healing, recovery

    Support refuge

    Varied, approved passively or actively supervised spaces for students experiencing stress

    • Edges, benches, slopes

    • Grove and garden

    Support learning activities

    • STEAM, reading, poetry, drama, debate, movement

    Support exploratory learning

    On site

    • Natural areas, local ecosystems, water story, garden, orchard, arboretum

    Off site

    • Neighborhood, town, city, parks, ecosystems

    Encourage play

    Active play

    Passive play

    Small/Medium/Large

    Support fitness

    Organized and personal

    Track, field, court, course

    Fitness circuit, climbing, obstacles

    Support social gathering

    Small/Medium/Large/Extra Large

    Areas that support small trusted group –

    friend(s), mentor

  • CONNECTED TO SPACE BEGINNING AT THE ENTRY

    Intentional design of movement through the school

    Clarity, visibility, thoughtful transparency

    • Avoid sharp corners, surprises

    • Minimal barriers

    • No dead ends

    • Consistency, predictability

    • Clear consistent signage

    • Gracious circulation space, avoid touching, and interfering with personal space

    Entry Sequence

    Clearly define an exterior approach

    Landscape/biophilia, security, welcome, visibility, engagement, shelter, protected place, scale

    Vestibule

    Shelter, warmth, visibility

    Lobby

    Welcome (students, parents/caregivers, community partners)

    • Information, support

      • Avoid punitive sounding messages

      • Celebrate movement and mindfulness

      • Support ‘Can do’ vs ‘can’t do’

      • Safety and security, visibility

  • Ongoing professional development space

    Restorative practices

    Relax, re-focus, biophilic connections

    Collaboration, planning, counseling spaces

    Adults model collaboration

    Coordinate with parents, caregivers, counselors, social workers, etc.

    Spaces for student supervision

    Passive supervision

    Familiar caring adults nearby who watch out for students

    Create a sense of safety and comfort

    Active supervision

    Space for test taking - private but visible to teachers + Adult eyes on student

    Concern for highly stressed student acting out or shutting down

    Welcome space

    Space to graciously great guests and caregivers

  • Distributed counseling services

    Counseling services brought to the students - interspersed throughout the school

    • Meeting spaces located in each learning community

    • Central records and planning space to accommodate counselor collaboration

    Centralized counseling services

    Areas of refuge within counseling waiting area

    Create circulation pathways that provides for confidentiality when using student services

    • Avoid placing counseling services in major circulation areas

      • Create circulation paths that provide confidentiality for students

      • Help students in crisis avoid the “walk of shame” when seeking a counselor

  • Provide spaces to enhance community engagement. Invite family participation in developing Trauma-Informed Care strategies. Recognize family inclusion is often the key to developing a safe place for kids

    FAMILY ROOMS

    Welcoming, highly visible

    Place of refuge, caring adults

    A place to meet, work, consult

    PTA, school volunteers, tutoring

    Technology

    English as a Second Language (ESL)

    After-hours access and use

    Extracurricular skills and vocational training

    NEXUS OF COMMUNITY SERVICES

    Community agencies, counseling, communication

    Health clinic

    Homelessness services

    Food pantry

    Clothes closet

    PLACE OF REFUGE

    Caring adults

    MULTI-PURPOSE SPACES

    Use of indoor and outdoor school spaces by the community for gatherings, sports, greenhouses and gardening

    Conferencing - large and small

    Kitchen

    Office

TRAUMA-INFORMED DESIGN RESOURCES

Bibliography by Topic

Childhood Trauma

Learning Models

Mental Health

Pandemic

Teachers

All

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