Why Should Educators Receive Training in Childhood Trauma?

Abstract

The principal objective of this article is to analyse the importance of the teacher in early childhood adversity (Felitti et al., American Journal of Preventive Medicine,14, 245–258, 1998) and attachment disorders (Barudy & Dantagan, 2005). The paradigms “trauma-aware” and “trauma-informed” are proposed as a tools for change in the educational approach in order to help children who have suffered adverse experiences. We focus on the Anglo-Saxon context, where there are educational experiences that have been studied from this perspective for more than two decades, in contrast to the Spanish educational reality in this respect. A systematic literature review was carried out from 2015 to 2021 in nine scientific databases, taking into account the guidelines of the PRISMA Declaration (Urrútia & Bonfill, Médica Clínica,135(11), 507–511, 2010). Next, the content was analysed with the help of the NVivo 12 program. It was found that, despite the existence of abundant theoretical literature on this subject in Spain, there are no references of practical experiences, and those that may exist are isolated and personal and are not included in the databases. Therefore, teachers in training lack practical references to deal with childhood trauma in daily educational practice. There is a need for the dissemination of trauma-aware Anglo-Saxon teaching practices.