Mandatory training for teachers regarding the impact of trauma and abuse on children

[Rufus27]

Someone has started a petition calling for mandatory training for teachers regarding the impact of trauma and abuse on children. Speaking as both a teacher and an adoptive mum, I think this can only be a good thing? (This was brought home to me when, after being matched with our baby, a few colleagues asked me why I needed adoption leave as I "hadn't actually given birth"!).

If you would like to sign the petition, here's the link:
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/176888

Apologies if it has already been posted.

I agree with this. DS's nursery teacher when I took him in (birth child) to nursery with DD (adopted) seemed to think it was fine for all the kids to swarm around her and pull at her legs/try to stroke her face etc. She was even encouraging it. I really thought as a qualified early years teacher that she would know better than that!

Yy - for all the teachers who don't understand why adopted children deserve to be considered a high priority category for school admissions "because they have settled with you so well". And to understand why doing a bloody family tree project early on at school is so perhaps the worst thing that they could ask an adopted child to do...

Thank for supporting. I wondered about posting this in Chat for the traffic?

I'd support that, but with the caveat that teachers are often not told about children's backgrounds. As a teacher I am very aware that not all the children in my class will have 'conventional' family backgrounds. I use terms like 'adults at home' instead of 'mum and dad' for eg.

I found out the following only gradually during my first year teaching, largely through the TAs - no one formally told me:

• one parent was an active alcoholic, who'd turned up drunk to pickup before
• two cases of past abuse
• one in and out of foster care
• eating disorder

Unless a parent told me, I would not know if any of my class were adopted, or had gone through trauma.

We are also not told about CP concerns unless we have to know, for privacy reasons. It's dealt with by SLT. If we report something we will probably not be told how it panned out.