The Resilience Education to Advance Community Healing (REACH) Statewide Initiative trains educators, school mental health professionals, and community members to recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma and address students' social-emotional and mental health needs.
Fifty-two districts
in Illinois have formed REACH teams to build the capacity of their schools to implement and expand trauma-responsive policies and practices.
Participating districts and schools receive training, technical assistance, and support to implement the REACH model.
- Each participating school will form a REACH school team with the following members: mental health professional, administrator, teacher, parent or caregiver, and community member or partner.
- REACH school teams will work together to:
- Complete trauma training through the online REACH Learning and Resource Hub.
- Conduct a needs assessment to pinpoint gaps in trauma-responsive practices.
- Develop a Trauma-Responsive Schools Action Plan to address areas of need identified in the assessment.
- Implement a data-driven action plan to support students' social-emotional learning and mental health.
- REACH team members can join a Community of Practice which provides spaces for teams to learn, share best practices, and apply new knowledge.
Free, on-demand training is available to ALL Illinois educators through the
Universal Learning and Resource Hub. These trainings cover topics that include the impact of trauma on children and adolescents, the intersection between race and trauma, crisis response strategies, educator self-care, and schoolwide policies and classroom practices to build resiliency among students.
